Four out of every five people aren’t active enough, and more than a quarter of adults aren’t exercising at all, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Not only does being a “couch potato” take a personal toll, but researchers in a study published January 2015 in Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases estimated that the lack of exercise adds up to an additional $117 billion in healthcare costs every year. The good news is that the updated physical activity recommendations for Americans from HHS, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on November 20, make accomplishing the suggested fitness goals more attainable than the old guidelines did. Members of HHS’s Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee (a group of nationally recognized physical activity and exercise experts) reviewed the latest science in physical activity and health in order to update the previous guidelines, which were published in 2008. New recommendations were based on the amount of supporting research as well as the consistency and quality of the findings in different areas of exercise and how it relates to health. Many of the recommendations were unchanged, including the suggested intensity and amount of weekly movement. According to the new recommendations, adults should still be getting 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity, or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous intensity aerobic exercise each week; and they should be doing strength-training exercises on two or more days a week. RELATED: Everything You Need to Know About Exercise The new guidelines now include recommendations for smaller children (those ages 3 to 5), emphasizing the importance of physical activity and active play in growth and development. The biggest change for adults is the amount of time an exercise session needs to last in order to count toward the goal. In the previous guidelines, a bout of movement had to be at least 10 minutes long. In the updated guidelines, shorter durations of activity — even just a minute or two, can go toward the number of minutes exercised. “These small changes can contribute to providing increases in health-enhancing activity,” the authors wrote in JAMA. “The update is very consequential,” says Haitham Ahmed, MD, a preventive cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio who was not involved in drafting the recommendations. “The data has increasingly shown that even minimal amounts of exercise are better than nothing,” he says. “Even just going up the stairs instead of using the elevator or going on short walks throughout the day will increase your step count and also add cumulative aerobic exercise. This has tremendous benefits over the long term,” Dr. Ahmed says. RELATED: Everything You Need to Know About Fitness The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1 in 10 early deaths are related to inadequate physical activity. Exercise leads to health benefits in just about every organ and muscle in your body and can help prevent or reduce the risk for many chronic conditions, including:
Heart diseaseHypertension (or high blood pressure)Type 2 diabetesCancer of the bladder, breast, colon, endometrium (lining of the uterus), esophagus, kidney, lung, and stomachDepressionAnxietyDementia
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Here Are the Key Takeaways From the Recommendations for Physical Activity
Emphasized in the new physical activity recommendations from HHS are the following points:
Move more and sit less.For people who exercise the least, even modest increases in physical activity can have health benefits.Young children ages 3 to 5 should be physically active throughout the day.Children and adolescents ages 6 to 17 should do at least an hour or more of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day.Adults should engage in 150 to 300 minutes a week of moderate-intensity physical activity or 75 to 150 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise or an equivalent combination of both.Adults should do muscle-strengthening activities two or more days a week.Older adults (age 65 and older) should incorporate balance training into their exercise regimen.
Examples of moderate-intensity physical activity are brisk walking at a 2.5 to 4 miles per hour pace or raking the yard. Vigorous-intensity activities include jogging, carrying heavy groceries, or participating in a strenuous fitness class. RELATED: What the New Exercise Guidelines Mean for People Managing Diabetes The “talk test” is one way to determine which kind of activity you are doing. If you can talk while you’re exercising, it’s probably moderate exercise, the authors note in the JAMA report. If you can only say a few words before pausing to catch your breath, that’s considered vigorous-intensity. RELATED: How to Start Working Out and Actually Stick With It
Health Experts Want You to Sit Less and Move More — All Day Long
The new report’s removal of the 10-minute bout criterion is meant to encourage people to be more active, which means moving more and sitting less, says Richard P. Troiano, PhD, a captain in the U.S. Public Health Service and a coauthor of the recommendations. “We do know that one of the most frequently mentioned barriers to being physically active is lack of time. Previously, some of the recommendations to add activity to daily life like parking farther away or taking the stairs were not consistent with the guidelines because of the bout criteria,” says Dr. Troiano. “The message now is clear that any moderate or vigorous-intensity activity — even brief — is beneficial,” he says. RELATED: Is Stair Climbing the Ideal Exercise for All Postmenopausal Women? These recommendations encourage people to do as much as they can, even if they don’t get attain the amount of exercise laid out in these guidelines, says Kerry Stewart, a professor of medicine in cardiology and the director of clinical/research exercise physiology at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore. Stewart was not involved in writing the recommendations. “These guidelines suggest that just getting up to move is beneficial, even if it’s just for 5 or 10 minutes.” It’s not just about exercising, he points out. “It’s also key not to sit too long without moving.” Wondering where to start? Take a walk, suggests Dr. Ahmed. “Walking is my favorite exercise because it’s low pressure on the joints and can be done almost anywhere with minimal need for fancy equipment,” he says. “If you walk briskly, you can really increase your heart rate and get up to the aerobic zone, so it’s overall a terrific way to increase your daily physical activity,” he says.
