Promoting physical activity: the new imperative for public health

The research agenda for the future includes initiatives designed to increase physical activity development of both basic and applied research among different populations and in different on physical activity, and the integration of thesettings, and to set the context for the major ory across social, behavioral and biomedical challenges that lie ahead. The decline in habitual disciplines. physical activity with modernization, and the causal link between physical activity and health ers, scavengers, toolmakers, hunters, farmers and ity are discussed. Diverse projects and camartisans. For 99.9% of human history, physical paigns in three countries, i.e. South Africa, demands were typical of daily life and an expected Australia and the US, are highlighted. Common part of the everyday world (Astrand, 1986). Our themes found in these physical activity initiatspecies not only survived but flourished for several ives include the development of a theory-driven thousand generations prior to the advent of the research base, inclusion of behavioral and social automobile, television, video games and the Interscientists on multidisciplinary teams, and advonet. Within only a few generations, the physical cacy for environmental changes that promote activity demands of work, domestic chores and physical activity. Within the next decade, leisure time have decreased so dramatically as research projects and national campaigns such to be nearly non-existent in industrialized and as those described herein will yield important urbanized environments. However, it has also become increasingly clear that many of the chronic diseases we face today