Move more, sit less! A Think Tank meeting to encourage individuals and communities to increase physical activity and decrease sedentary behaviors

This week I participaed in an international 'Think Tank' meeting in NewCastle, UK. On Sunday the Great North Run will take place there, and attached to that 1/2 marathin event, in which some 50,000 people will participate, a Think Tank symposium was organised to brainstorm on how to promote healthy eating & physical activity, and discourage sedentray behaviours across the life course. I participated as a discussant in the meeting on physical activity and sedentary behaviours. In that meeting short introductions on the evidence regarding physical activity and sedentary behaviours for different target groups (i.e. pre-schoolers, school-age children, elderly etc) were provided by, for example, professors Fiona Bull, John Reilly, Gareth Stratton, Tom McKenzie, Wendy Brown, Jo Salmon and Simon Marschall. These introductions were followed by round table discussions.
Key Issues for the Think Tank were:

1. We are now realising that sedentary behaviour is often excessive and we need to seek ways to reduce too much sitting
2. Often physical activity has been seen as something for children and young adults. More emphasis needs to be placed on all ages across the lifespan
3. We need a dual approach to increasing physical activity and decreasing sedentary behaviour
4. We need to know more about successful ways to change behaviour.

The Think Tank aim was to:

• Tackle the important issues of physical activity and sedentary behaviour across the lifespan (pre-school children, young people and older adults), consider how guidelines and policies can work to encourage behaviour change, and evaluate the role of new technologies in behaviour change
• Synthesise state-of-the-art evidence
• State clear conclusions about what is known, not known, and what needs to be known in the future
• Arrive at practical suggestions for behaviour change in the context being addressed.

The chair of the Think Tank, professor Stuart Biddle of Loughborough University, wit some support staff will now try to synthesize the conclusions from the intensive discussions in a recommendations document.