Promoting health-enhancing physical activity across sectors - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 354/1

The benefits of physical activity, including regular sporting activity and exercise, across the life course are paramount and include lowered risk of cardiovascular disease and of some types of cancers and diabetes, improvements in musculoskeletal health and body weight control, as well as positive effects on mental health development and cognitive processes. Physical activity, as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), is important for all age groups, and has particular relevance for children, the working population and the elderly.

Physical activity, being a prerequisite for a healthy lifestyle and a healthy workforce, contributes to the achievement of key objectives defined in the Europe 2020 Strategy notably with regard to growth, productivity and health.

While efforts to promote health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA) have been stepped up by public authorities in some Member States over the past years, rates of physical inactivity in the Union remain unacceptably high. The majority of European citizens do not engage in sufficient physical activity, with 60 % never or seldom playing sport or exercising. The lack of leisure-time physical activity tends to be more common in the lower socio-economic groups. There are currently no indications that those negative trends are being reversed for the Union as a whole.

Physical inactivity has been identified as a leading risk factor for premature mortality and disease in high-income countries world-wide, being responsible for about 1 million deaths per year in the WHO European Region alone. The detriments caused by the lack of physical activity in the Union are well recorded, as are the significant direct and indirect economic costs associated with the lack of physical activity and related health problems, especially in view of the fact that most European societies are ageing rapidly.

Recent research indicates that sedentary behaviour might be a risk factor for health outcomes, independent of the influence of physical activity. In the Union, these findings should be taken into account when considering further actions in this area.

As regards physical activity levels, there are vast discrepancies between Member States. While some have made considerable progress in increasing the proportion of citizens who meet the minimum level of recommended physical activity, many others have made none or even regressed. Current policies have so far not had a decisive impact in reducing the physical inactivity levels for the Union as a whole. There is considerable potential to learn from successful approaches to develop and implement HEPA policies.

Physical education at school has the potential to be an effective tool to increase awareness of the importance of HEPA, and schools can be easily and effectively targeted to implement activities in this regard.

A number of policy areas, in particular sport and health, can contribute to the promotion of physical activity and can provide new opportunities for Union citizens to become physically active. For this potential to be fully exploited, and therefore for physical activity levels to increase, a strategic cross-sectoral approach in the field of HEPA promotion, including involvement at all levels of all relevant Ministries, bodies and...