The “Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health”, adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2004, describes the actions needed to increase physical activity worldwide. The Strategy urges stakeholders to take action at global, regional and local levels to increase physical activity.
The "Global Recommendations on Physical Activity for Health", published by WHO in 2010, focus on primary prevention of NCDs through physical activity. It proposes different policy options to reach the recommended levels of physical activity globally, such as:
- the development and implementation of national guidelines for health-enhancing physical activity;
- the integration of physical activity within other related policy sectors, in order to secure that policies and action plans are coherent and complementary;
- the use of mass media to raise awareness of the benefits of being physically active;
- the surveillance and monitoring of actions to promote physical activity.
To measure physical activity in adults, WHO has developed the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ). This questionnaire helps countries monitor insufficient physical activity as one of the main NCD risk factors. The GPAQ has been integrated into the WHO STEPwise approach, which is a surveillance system for the main NCD risk factors.
A module to assess insufficient physical activity among schoolchildren has been integrated into the Global school-based student health survey (GSHS). The GSHS is a WHO/US CDC surveillance project designed to help countries measure and assess the behavioural risk factors and protective factors in 10 key areas among young people aged 13 to 17 years.
In 2013, the World Health Assembly agreed on a set of global voluntary targets which include a 25% reduction of premature mortality from NCDs and a 10% decrease in insufficient physical activity by 2025. The “Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases 2013-2020” guides Member States, WHO and other UN Agencies on how to effectively achieve these targets. A sector specific toolkit is under development by WHO to assist Member States implement actions and achieve the targets.
WHO has established several partnerships to help support Member States in their efforts to promote physical activity – these include the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and United Nations Sport for Development and Peace (UNOSPD).
