Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Comparative aspects of human activity
- 3 Physical activity levels – past and present
- 4 The validity of health measurements
- 5 Developments in the assessment of physical activity
- 6 Two national surveys of activity, fitness and health: the Allied Dunbar National Fitness survey and the Welsh Heart Health survey
- 7 Physical development and childhood activity
- 8 Physical activity and behavioural development during childhood and youth
- 9 Physiological aspects of activity and ageing
- 10 Activity and morale in later life: preliminary analysis from the Nottingham Longitudinal Study of Activity and Ageing
- 11 The benefits of low intensity exercise
- 12 Physical activity, obesity and weight maintenance
- 13 Adherence to physical activity and exercise
- 14 Women's working behaviour and maternal-child health in rural Nepal
- 15 Physical activity and psychological well-being
- 16 Leisure lifestyles: present and future
- Index
1 - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Comparative aspects of human activity
- 3 Physical activity levels – past and present
- 4 The validity of health measurements
- 5 Developments in the assessment of physical activity
- 6 Two national surveys of activity, fitness and health: the Allied Dunbar National Fitness survey and the Welsh Heart Health survey
- 7 Physical development and childhood activity
- 8 Physical activity and behavioural development during childhood and youth
- 9 Physiological aspects of activity and ageing
- 10 Activity and morale in later life: preliminary analysis from the Nottingham Longitudinal Study of Activity and Ageing
- 11 The benefits of low intensity exercise
- 12 Physical activity, obesity and weight maintenance
- 13 Adherence to physical activity and exercise
- 14 Women's working behaviour and maternal-child health in rural Nepal
- 15 Physical activity and psychological well-being
- 16 Leisure lifestyles: present and future
- Index
Summary
It is surprising how few attempts have been made to describe or to reach a consensus on current knowledge on physical activity, exercise and health. The 32 published Symposia of the Society for the Study of Human Biology, for example, do not include a title on this topic. This is unexpected for a Society now nearly 35 years old and containing many members interested in this area. Recent symposia have examined Energy and Effort (Harrison, 1982) and Capacity for Work in the Tropics (Collins & Roberts, 1988), and disease and abnormality have been a recurring interest in the Society's symposia but physical activity and health has been left to others.
It might be thought that there was no need for another symposium on the topic. The case for exercise has been made (Fentem and Bassey, 1978) and updated (Fentem, Bassey & Turnbull, 1988) and the leading experts met in Toronto in 1988 to produce a 700-page consensus of current knowledge on exercise, fitness and health (Bouchard et al., 1990). In the United Kingdom, sport, health, psychology and exercise were examined with a mental health emphasis at a three-day symposium in 1988 emanating from the Fitness and Health Advisory Group of the Sports Council and the Health Education Authority (Proceedings of Symposium on Sport, Health, Psychology and Exercise) (n.d.). What these latter sources disclose is that there is still much to be understood.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Physical Activity and Health , pp. 1 - 6Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992