The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans serves as the primary, authoritative voice of the federal government for evidence-based guidance on physical activity, fitness, and health. It provides evidence-based recommendations for adults and youth ages 3 through 17 to safely get the physical activity they need to stay healthy. It also includes information on how physical activity can help promote health and reduce the risk of chronic disease.
HHS produces the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans to provide evidence-based guidance that policy makers and health professionals can use to implement programs, policies, and practices for increasing levels of physical activity and improving health.
The United States currently has low levels of adherence to the Guidelines — only 20% of adults and adolescents meet the recommendations. This has health and economic consequences for the Nation. Nearly $117 billion dollars in annual health care costs and 10% of all premature mortality are attributable to failure to meet the levels of aerobic physical activity recommended in the Guidelines.
When we move more, we have better cardiovascular health, we are stronger and less susceptible to disease, and we feel better. That’s why the updated Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans encourages leaders across the Nation to take action to help Americans fit more physical activity into their daily lives.
The 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee, a group of external experts in physical activity and health, was appointed by the HHS Secretary to review and evaluate current scientific evidence related to physical activity and health. The committee submitted its findings to the HHS Secretary in the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee Scientific Report. The report, agency comments, and public comments were used to develop the second edition of the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.
The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH) at HHS led the development and release of the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. ODPHP collaborated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition (PCSFN) to develop the second edition of the Guidelines.
The policy writing committee was comprised of physical activity science and policy experts within HHS. The Guidelines undergoes peer review and clearance across the federal government prior to being approved and released by the HHS Secretary.
The primary audiences for the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans are policy makers and health professionals at the national, state, and local level. Policy makers use the Guidelines to inform policy to increase physical activity, and health professionals use it to inform health care and public health practices.
At the federal level, the recommendations from the Guidelines inform:
The Guidelines is written for a professional audience, though it may also be useful to interested members of the public. A separate communication campaign (Move Your Way®) has been developed to prioritize and communicate messages in the Guidelines to the general public.
The second edition reflects new knowledge about more health benefits from physical activity — and how Americans can more easily achieve these benefits. Many of these health benefits are independent of other healthy behaviors, like good nutrition.
We now know that any amount of physical activity can have health benefits. New evidence supports that physical activity:
The Guidelines has always advised Americans to avoid inactivity, but we have new knowledge about the risks of sedentary behavior. Based on this, we’ve removed the requirement that bouts of physical activity be at least 10 minutes long. This is designed to encourage Americans to move more and sit less throughout the day.
The second edition of the Guidelines includes guidance for specific groups of people:
The second edition of the Guidelines includes evidence-based strategies to increase physical activity levels for individuals, their families, and their communities. For example:
New evidence has reinforced the first edition’s recommended amounts of physical activity for adults and youth ages 6 through 17. These recommended amounts remain unchanged in the second edition:
The first edition of the Guidelines focused on the role of physical activity in preventing disease, including lowering risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and colon and breast cancer. The evidence supporting these long-term health benefits has strengthened in the decade since the first edition was published.
HHS has released the following guidance documents for physical activity:
Unlike the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, there isn’t a congressional mandate to update the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans on a regular basis. The timing for developing the second edition of the Guidelines was based on:
The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans includes the following new key guidelines:
The second edition also includes a target for this age group of at least 3 hours of activity per day, although this isn’t a key guideline. This target is based on the average amount of activity observed among children of this age and is consistent with guidelines from Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Commonwealth of Australia.
Those that are currently inactive benefit the most from physical activity. The added flexibility in achieving the key guidelines through all bouts of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity may help encourage those who are inactive to start increasing their overall volume of weekly physical activity. Even the smallest increase in physical activity can benefit health, not only long term, but immediately. For example, those with type 2 diabetes can benefit immediately from improved insulin sensitivity. Other immediate health benefits, or those attainable from a single bout of activity, include reduced anxiety and blood pressure, and improved quality of sleep.
For those who are inactive, the Guidelines recommend starting with small amounts of activity and working up to at least 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous aerobic activity each week plus two days per week of muscle strengthening activities over time. Those who start small may be more likely to stick with physical activity as they slowly build up fitness and strength, as opposed to starting with 150 minutes per week, which may not be immediately achievable for those who are currently inactive.
The first key guideline for adults is to move more and sit less. This recommendation is supported by new evidence that shows a strong relationship between increased sedentary behavior and increased risk of all-cause mortality, heart disease, and high blood pressure.
While the evidence didn’t support a specific recommended limit on daily sedentary behavior — or recommendations on how to break up sedentary behavior throughout the day — all physical activity, especially moderate-to-vigorous activity, can help offset these risks.
As a rule of thumb, a person doing moderate-intensity aerobic activity can talk, but not sing, during the activity. A person doing vigorous-intensity activity can’t say more than a few words without pausing for a breath.
The intensity of a specific activity can vary based on a person’s fitness level. Some activities may be moderate intensity for an average person and vigorous intensity for others who are less fit. For a person with an average fitness level:
Move Your Way is a campaign for consumers that’s based on the recommendations from the second edition of the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) developed the campaign to help health professionals, national organizations, communities, and other physical activity stakeholders clearly communicate the amount and types of physical activity that Americans need to stay healthy.
Rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach, the Move Your Way campaign emphasizes personalized, practical strategies that people can use to fit more activity into their busy lives. The campaign is informed by audience research and user testing with consumers who aren’t currently meeting the recommendations in the Guidelines.
To see Move Your Way resources — including videos, interactive tools, content syndication tools, social media messages, and fact sheets and posters in English and Spanish — visit the Move Your Way Campaign Materials page and check out the Partner Promotion Toolkit.