Health matters: getting every adult active every day - Philippa Lynch

The latest edition of Public Health England's Health Matters introduces a range of data, tools and resources to help professionals promote adult physical activity.

This edition focuses on getting every adult active every day by building physical activity into daily routines.

This edition of Health Matters adopts PHE’s national physical activity framework, Everybody Active Every Day, which identifies four areas for local and national action that can help to get people active.

1. Active Society - People are more likely to be active if it is seen as ‘normal’, and if their friends and peers are also active.
2. Moving professionals - 1 in 4 patients would be more active if advised by a GP or nurse.
3. Active environments - Our homes, workplaces and local environments should be designed to encourage physically active.
4. Moving at scale - Positive change needs to happen at every level, in every region and be measurable.

Persuading inactive people  to become more active could prevent one in ten cases of stroke and heart disease in the UK and one in six deaths from any cause. In fact it’s often said that if physical activity was a drug it would be classed as a wonder drug.