Correlates of physical activity: why are some people physically active and others not?

TL;DR: In this article, the authors summarise present global efforts to counteract this problem and point the way forward to address the pandemic of physical inactivity, concluding that, although evidence for the benefits of physical activity for health has been available since the 1950s, promotion to improve the health of populations has lagged in relation to the available evidence.

TL;DR: Recommendations include creation and improvement of access to places for physical activity with informational outreach activities, community-scale and street-scale urban design and land use, active transport policy and practices, and community-wide policies and planning.

TL;DR: Overall, the majority of the literature finds that the experience of stress impairs efforts to be physically active, and some prospective studies report evidence that PA was positively impacted by stress (behavioral activation).

TL;DR: Design of urban environments has the potential to contribute substantially to physical activity and similarity of findings across cities suggests the promise of engaging urban planning, transportation, and parks sectors in efforts to reduce the health burden of the global physical inactivity pandemic.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors quantify the effect of physical inactivity on these major non-communicable diseases by estimating how much disease could be averted if inactive people were to become active and to estimate gain in life expectancy at the population level.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe physical activity levels worldwide with data for adults (15 years or older) from 122 countries and for adolescents (13-15-years-old) from 105 countries.