Physical activity and public health: recommendations for exercise prescription.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20344/amp.1412Abstract
During the last half century scientific data have been accumulated, through epidemiological and clinical studies that clearly document the significant health benefits associated with regular physical activity. This paper will analyse the latest recommendations for prescribing exercise in all age groups in healthy subjects and to individuals with chronic non-communicable diseases such as overweight, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and cancer, that contribute to the leading causes of global mortality. A search in the Pubmed database was performed and were also searched the recommendations of the World Health Organization and scientific organizations in Portugal. Most health benefits occur with at least 150 minutes of aerobic exercise of moderate intensity, accumulated over the week, which can be split into periods of at least 10 minutes. Brisk walking seems to be the preferred aerobic exercise. Vigorous intensity aerobic exercise and resistance exercises for muscle strengthening, at least two days a week are also recommended. Children, youth, older adults and people with overweight have particular needs for physical activity. Additional benefits occur with increasing quantity and quality of physical activity through the proper manipulation of the exercise density (intensity, frequency and duration). However, some physical activity is better than none. The role of health professionals in prescribing appropriate exercise to their patients is fundamental to their involvement in increasing their physical activity levels and thus contributing to their health promotion and prevention and treatment of major non-communicable chronic diseases.Downloads
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
All the articles published in the AMP are open access and comply with the requirements of funding agencies or academic institutions. The AMP is governed by the terms of the Creative Commons ‘Attribution – Non-Commercial Use - (CC-BY-NC)’ license, regarding the use by third parties.
It is the author’s responsibility to obtain approval for the reproduction of figures, tables, etc. from other publications.
Upon acceptance of an article for publication, the authors will be asked to complete the ICMJE “Copyright Liability and Copyright Sharing Statement “(http://www.actamedicaportuguesa.com/info/AMP-NormasPublicacao.pdf) and the “Declaration of Potential Conflicts of Interest” (http:// www.icmje.org/conflicts-of-interest). An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author to acknowledge receipt of the manuscript.
After publication, the authors are authorised to make their articles available in repositories of their institutions of origin, as long as they always mention where they were published and according to the Creative Commons license.