Bauman, Adrian E., MacNiven, Rona, and Gebel, Klaus (2014) Influencing policy and environments to promote physical activity behavior change. In: Nigg, Claudio R., (ed.) ACSM’s Behavioral Aspects of Exercise. Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia, PA, USA, pp. 187-200.

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Abstract

[Extract] This chapter explores the relationship between policy, environmental changes, and physical activity. These areas of work are usually carried out by public health staff in their efforts to increase population levels of physical activity. As such, they are concerned with getting everyone in a community or region to be more physically active, until "health targets" are reached, with all adults and children meeting population recommendations for health-enhancing physical activity. These public health actions are far from the individual focus of physical activity counseling, individualized or smallgroup physical activity programs, or other approaches to change individual behaviour regarding activity. This chapter is a link between what public health professionals do, and what individual practitioners do in their daily work. The objectives of this chapter are to describe the role of policies and the physical environment in physical activity, from a practitioner perspective, rather than from a policymaker or decision-maker perspective. This is seldom done, and the differences between practice and policy are often highlighted. Here, we approach this chapter to minimize the artificial gulf between physical activity policy and practice, and show how an understanding of policy and of the physical environment can help practitioners in their work to increase activity and exercise behaviors among their clients and patients. Terms that may be unfamiliar to some behavioral and exercise scientists and practitioners are defined in Table 7.1.

Item ID:	36764
Item Type:	Book Chapter (Teaching Material)
ISBN:	978-1-4511-3211-3
Keywords:	built environment; physical activity; policy
Date Deposited:	29 Sep 2015 23:46
FoR Codes:	11 MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES > 1117 Public Health and Health Services > 111712 Health Promotion @ 80% 12 BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND DESIGN > 1205 Urban and Regional Planning > 120508 Urban Design @ 20%
SEO Codes:	92 HEALTH > 9204 Public Health (excl. Specific Population Health) > 920499 Public Health (excl. Specific Population Health) not elsewhere classified @ 100%
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