Highly respected journal says physical inactivity kills

The Lancet, one of the world's leading medical journals and an independent and authoritative voice in global medicine, just came out with a Physical Activity Series in their latest issue. Within the series, it states that physical inactivity causes 6–10% of all deaths from the major non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Furthermore, they show that inactivity causes 9% of premature mortality, or more than 5.3 of the 57 million deaths that occurred worldwide in 2008. The series also looks at:

• current levels of physical activity and trends worldwide
• why some people are active and why some are not
• evidence-based strategies for effective physical activity promotion
• how a multi-sector and systems-wide approach that goes way beyond health will be critical to increase population-levels of activity worldwide

Read the response to the series by AAHPERD CEO, Paul Roetert.