Publications

Active for Life: A Call for Action

Date of publication: January 1998

• Summary
• Publication availability

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Summary

This report by the National Health Committee (NHC) summarises the evidence of the benefits of physical activity, identifies best practice approaches and priorities for the promotion of physical activity, and makes recommendations on increasing the participation of all New Zealanders in physical activity.

The report begins by outlining the types of so-called lifestyle diseases that the NHC believes could be reduced by regular exercise. It quotes a 1996 Hillary Commission survey which found one-third of adult New Zealanders take part in less than 2.5 hours of leisure time physical activity a week and just under a sixth of adults took no part in leisure time physical activity in the past four weeks.

The report concludes that ways need to be found of introducing more activity into New Zealanders’ daily lives to prevent chronic disease and premature death and maintain a high quality of life.

The report examines the evidence for the benefits of physical activity and looks at how much physical activity is considered necessary for those benefits.

The risks of physical activity are considered and the extent of physical inactivity in New Zealand is described in detail. The report then outlines the health benefits of increased physical activity in terms of deaths prevented. It looks at strategies for intervention and summarises current physical activity programmes. It recommends high risk sedentary groups are targeted for intervention.

Finally, it makes recommendations based on a 1997 workshop which considered a range of strategies for increasing participation and the most effective ways of achieving this.

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Publication availability

This publication is not available in hard copy. It is only available on this website in PDF format below:

Active for Life: A Call for Action (PDF, 489 KB)


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