Abby C. King
PhD., Professor, Departments of Health Research & Policy and Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA USA
Adoption and Maintenance of Physical Activity Across the Lifespan
Over the past decade, the prevalence of inactivity in many industrialized nations has remained unchanged or increased. Yet, the heterogeneity of these populations--both within and between cultures—in terms of resources, interests, past experiences, and other factors, creates particular challenges with respect to developing effective physical activity interventions. To aid the development of such interventions, it is useful to apply a multi-level perspective that includes interpersonal as well as environmental approaches. Several promising directions that are currently being developed in the physical activity promotion field will be highlighted. These directions include broadening the focus of interventions to include sedentary activities that typically compete with physical activity goals and targets (e.g., TV use); exploring life transitions, when physical activity may naturally change and/or interest in becoming more active may increase (e.g., transitions from school to work, or from single to married status); identifying population segments at particular risk for inactivity who have been little studied (e.g., informal family caregivers, rural or isolated population segments); broadening the reach of effective programs into the larger population through the use of state-of-the-art communication technologies and other types of intervention channels (e.g., telephone-linked computer systems, personal digital assistants); striving to be sensitive to the cost-benefit trade-offs of our programs (i.e., to answer the question 'Which programs are most beneficial for which population subgroups, and at what cost?'); exploring the environmental context of physical activity and person-environmental interactions (including both the physical and social environments); and, finally, applying a trans-disciplinary perspective in helping us to engage new partners in achieving large-scale physical activity promotion (e.g., urban planners, transportation experts, environmental groups). The presentation will close with suggestions and recommendations for future intervention development in this field.
