In a keynote talk at the ISPAH Congress 2024, Kent Buse (Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Global Health 50/50 and Professor of Health Policy at Monash University Malaysia) challenged the physical activity community to think and act more politically for effective policies for physical activity. 

Despite overwhelming evidence on the health benefits of physical activity, high prevalence of inactivity in many countries, and a Global Action Plan providing evidence-informed solutions to guide government action, physical activity rarely receives due recognition in the response to tackling major population health concerns. What is perpetuating inaction on physical activity by policymakers? 

In a new article, published in the BMJ, Kent Buse, Karen Milton (Past President of ISPAH and Associate Professor in Public Health at the University of East Anglia, UK) and Fiona Bull (Head of the Physical Activity Unit at the World Health Organization and Professor of Public Health at the University of Western Australia) reflect on how competing interest groups seek to avert or subvert attention on physical activity. They highlight the need for the global physical activity community to confront those who are shaping current narratives that devalue or obstruct physical activity related policy, and to focus our collective advocacy efforts on creating a more favourable power balance for policy actions that encourage physical activity to be prioritised.

With the Fourth United Nations (UN) High Level Meeting on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) taking place in September this year, it has never been a more critical time to strengthen our focus of physical activity advocacy on political systems and mobilise against power dynamics that are perpetuating inaction on physical inactivity.

Authored by: Karen Milton, Past President, ISPAH