Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-2019

Identifier

DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2019.00135; PMCID: PMC6566056

Abstract

The new 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans provides updated recommendations for physical activity behavior. These guidelines remove the requirement for physical activity to be obtained in bouts of at least 10 min. The purpose of the present study was to provide an updated estimate of the proportion of adults meeting the physical activity guidelines, based on nationally representative data using accelerometers. Data from 6,525 adults were included in this study. The proportion of adults meeting the physical activity guidelines according to the Department of Health and Human Services and according to the American College of Sports Medicine were estimated using (a) lifestyle activities and (b) ambulatory activities only. Estimates of the proportion of adults meeting the physical activity guidelines ranged from 3.4 to 95.6%, even when based on the same data. The large range of these estimates suggest that challenges exist when using accelerometer data to estimate the levels of physical activity behavior in the population. Further, the large range indicates that, perhaps, physical activity guidelines should not be used as a reference point for behavior change. Instead, we suggest that efforts should be made to promote physical activity in reference to current behavior.

Journal Title

Front Public Health

Volume

7

First Page

135

Last Page

135

Keywords

hysical Activity Guidelines for Americans; accelerometers; physical activity behavior; physical activity guidelines; physical activity surveillance

Comments

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Publisher's Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2019.00135

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