Every 10 years the World Health Organization (WHO) updates their guidelines for physical activity. The WHO published their recent draft in December 2020.
Their goal is to reduce physical inactivity by 15% by 20301. We have a lot of work to do, but these guidelines offer a solid foundation to build fitness repertoires for ourselves and others.
These guidelines give us recommendations for the following groups: children ages 5-17, Adults 18-65, Adults 65+, Pregnant and Postpartum women, and Individuals with living Chronic Conditions.
There are a few nuanced details for each group, if interested, check out the references to learn more.
Here are the biggest takeaways.
What’s The Same?
Keep in mind that these are minimum exercise recommendations:
- Children should be physically active 60 minutes per day
- Adults 18-65+ should engage in 150 minutes of moderate physical
- Emphasis remains on muscle-strengthening and balance activities for all age groups
What’s New?
Update 1: Reducing Sedentary Behavior
The biggest takeaway from these update guidelines is reducing sedentary behaviors across all populations. For the first time, the WHO workgroup wrote this recommendation into official WHO physical activity guidelines.
Children should limit sedentary screen time and we should all replace sedentary time with light-physical activity (light chores around the house).
Reducing sedentary time was deemed critical by WHO’s naming convention.
Also, the term sedentary behavior was kept as opposed to sitting as to not exclude wheel-chair bound individuals. Sedentary is a technical term describing a metabolic rate of change and not an individual’s ability to sit stand or move.
Update 2: Updated Exercise Time Ranges
For moderate-to-vigorous activity, the duration of exercise duration changed from 150 minutes per week to a range of 150-300 minutes per week. For vigorous activity, the duration changed from 75 minutes per week to the range of 75-150 minutes per week.
This range extension captures the range of maximal benefits for these workout intensities.
Update 3: All older adults should engage in functional movements
Instead of older adults with poor mobility, ALL older needs should engage in “functional training and strength training to enhance functional capacity and prevent falls…”2
Looks like its time for grandma to back into the squat rack.
Update 4: Physical Activity Is Not Restricted To 10-minutes bouts
Previously, exercising for 10 minutes or more only counted towards your exercise minutes. This condition has been removed so that any minutes count now.
Time for all of the fitness devices out there to tune the algorithms to this major change.
