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Sitting, it was already a bad reputation before it was defined by the time spent on home office chairs. In recent years, studies have linked sitting for more than 10 hours a day and higher healthcare costs – and a higher risk of death.
In an effort to eliminate sitting, the World Health Organization (WHO) has changed the way it describes the enemy of sitting: physical activity. And anyone wary of hours spent on a treadmill might be happy to see some key changes in what the WHO considers exercise.
Last week, WHO updated its guidelines for physical activity for the first time since 2010. The guidelines were published in a special edition of British medical journal.
Adults are now advised to get between 150 and 300 minutes of moderate exercise per week, or 30 to 60 minutes per day, 5 days per week.
Moderate exercise looks like an exertion level of five or six out of ten. If time is a factor, the guidelines suggest increasing the intensity. In this case, adults should aim for 75 to 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise – an effort you could assign to five or more in ten.
Emmanuel Stamatakis is co-author of the revised guidelines and a professor at the University of Sydney. He says Reverse that sitting in itself is not unhealthy – sedentary behavior, after all, is part of normal life. However, low levels of exercise in addition to a lot of sedentary time “seems to add insult to injury,” Stamatakis says.
“The real culprit is that our civilization has designed an environment where it is difficult to be physically active but offers many opportunities to be sedentary,” he says. Reverse.
For adults, the guidelines contain three signs that the WHO is updating their way of thinking about exercise and their ability to help offset the dangers of a sedentary life:
- These guidelines eliminate minimum exercise times, emphasizing that any amount of exercise is better than nothing.
- They recognize a a wider range of exercises, from muscle building to balanced workouts.
- The guidelines suggest limit the time spent sedentary is in itself a tool that can combat the dangers of sitting, in addition to exercise.
More minimum – The previous edition of the WHO physical activity guidelines recommended that exercise sessions last at least 10 minutes. The new guidelines eliminate this requirement due to new evidence suggesting that even a little exercise is worth it.
A 2019 study of 12 editions of the National Health Survey – an annual collection of data on the health of U.S. citizens – found that short, leisurely activities were associated with a lower risk of death. Walking, gardening or dancing non-vigorously for between 10 minutes and an hour per day was associated with an 18% lower risk of death compared to those who did nothing.
A study published last week in the special edition of British medical journal reinforces the idea that movement, not just exercise, has the potential to offset the dangers of sitting.
The study looked at nine previous articles that tracked more than 44,000 people with fitness trackers. The authors found that those who engaged in between 30 and 40 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise reduced the risk of death from a sedentary lifestyle.
However, this reduction could be achieved in two ways.
People who did short workouts (only 11 minutes per day) but were sedentary for only 8.5 hours per day (the maximum was 10.7 hours) had the same reductions in risk as those who did the most exercise (a maximum of 35 minutes per day) but sitting for 10 hours per day.
This suggests that simply reducing the time spent sitting may help reduce the risk of death, in addition to exercise.
A new focus on lifting – The old WHO guidelines mentioned that adults should engage in muscle building activities at least twice a week. This recommendation is reflected in the new guidelines.
However, the new guidelines draw more attention to the importance of Continue weight training as people get older. Promoting strength training, the authors write “has been largely forgotten or ignored in the past.”
“There is a specific recommendation on strength-promoting exercise because it is clear that it has benefits that are beyond those of aerobic physical activity,” Stamatakis says.
Studies of resistance training suggest that it can increase bone density and muscle quality (a measure of strength in relation to muscle mass), which can prevent injuries from falling as people get older. Weightlifting can also strengthen the nervous system – especially the reticulospinal tract – which helps the body to control coordinated motor activity.
A 2017 review of 16 resistance training studies found that it had the greatest effects in reducing complaints of body pain and was linked to improvements in mental health.
Additionally, the guidelines suggest that a strength training routine should be worn into old age. This is especially true for adults over 65 and older: Combining different types of exercise, including strength and balance exercises, three days a week could help prevent devastating falls, says WHO.
A balanced image – In general, exercise always seems to be the best way to combat sitting, in general, explains Fiona Bull. She is the first guideline author and head of the physical activity unit at WHO. If you can’t avoid sitting for long periods of time, increasing the amount of exercise done during the day, even beyond recommended limits, can help rebalance the scale, Bull says.
“Higher levels of physical activity can ‘offset’ the health disadvantages of overly sedentary behavior in adults,” she says. Reverse.
These guidelines are far from something you might find in a gym, but they are the kind of clues schools or governments can use to influence what an exercise program looks like.
Overall, they present a much more balanced picture of what exercise really is: It’s not just about running endless hours on a treadmill or around the block. While training won’t help you win races, it just might help keep you alive.
Abstract:
Goals: Describe the new WHO 2020 guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behavior.
Methods: The guidelines have been developed in accordance with WHO protocols. An expert guideline development group reviewed the evidence to assess associations between physical activity and sedentary behavior for an agreed set of health outcomes and population groups. The evaluation used and systematically updated recent relevant systematic reviews; new primary examinations focused on additional health outcomes or subpopulations.
Results: The new guidelines apply to children, adolescents, adults, the elderly and include new specific recommendations for pregnant and postpartum women and people living with chronic illnesses or disabilities. All adults should undertake 150 to 300 minutes of moderate intensity, or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous-intensity physical activity, or an equivalent combination of moderate-intensity and vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, per week. In children and adolescents, an average of 60 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous aerobic physical activity throughout the week is beneficial for health. The guidelines recommend regular muscle building activities for all age groups. Additionally, reduction in sedentary behavior is recommended in all age groups and abilities, although there is insufficient evidence to quantify a threshold for sedentary behavior.
Conclusion: These 2020 WHO guidelines update previous WHO recommendations published in 2010. They reaffirm messages that some physical activity is better than nothing, that more physical activity is better for optimal health outcomes. and provide a new recommendation on reducing sedentary behaviors. These guidelines highlight the importance of regularly undertaking aerobic and muscle building activities and, for the first time, specific recommendations for specific populations, including pregnant and postpartum women and people living with them. chronic disease or disability. These guidelines should be used to inform national health policies aligned with the WHO Global Plan of Action for Physical Activity 2018-2030 and to strengthen surveillance systems that track progress towards national and global goals.
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