How the exercise you undertake influences health across your lifespan

We know that physical activity is important for health, but how is it important? Is it simply the sum of energy expended while active that matters, or are there optimal ways to expend the same amounts of energy? National and international physical activity guidelines encourage adults to accumulate 150 to 300 minutes per week of moderate intensity physical activity, or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous intensity physical activity, or an equivalent combination of both, and to break up periods of prolonged sitting.

People who achieve these physical activity guidelines thresholds accumulate their activity in many different ways. For example, some might do 30 minutes of moderate-intensity PA on 5 days each week (e.g. walking to/from work), while others do 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity PA on a single day (e.g. playing competition tennis on a Sunday morning).

As movement has been engineered out of most occupations, and as sedentary transport modes have become more common, new questions about how people accumulate physical activity in everyday life have arisen.

About Dr Gregore Mielke: Dr Mielke is a UQ Development Fellow with the UQ School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences. Gregore has worked with the Centre for Research on Exercise, Physical Activity and Health (CRExPAH) researchers on the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health (ALSWH) and HABITAT studies, and collaborated with other higher degree students on several exercise physiology projects. Gregore's interest is in measuring and understanding inequalities in population health, particularly in relation to physical activity and sedentary behaviour.