New Delhi, Mar 9: Well-designed physical activity initiatives that support walking, cycling and public transport can simultaneously contribute to climate mitigation and adaptation and promote health and equity, according to a study.
Researchers, including those from the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, have developed a ‘physical activity and climate change’ model, a conceptual framework offering a practical basis for integrated, equitable and sustainable solutions.
“Aligning physical activity and climate change agendas is more powerful than addressing them separately, offering greater combined benefits for population and environmental health,” authors wrote in the paper describing the model published in the journal Nature Health.
The paper is among a series of three indicating that current efforts directed at promoting engagement in physical activity are insufficient, and a coordinated action is required to ensure that physical activity contributes towards public health and society goals, including climate resilience.
According to the physical activity and climate change model, by making outdoor environments unsafe or inaccessible through extreme weather events such as heatwaves and flooding, climate change can undermine one’s physical activity.
Conversely, physical activity initiatives, especially those related to active transport and urban design, can help mitigate climate change by reducing a reliance on motor transport and supporting a low-emissions living, the researchers said.
In another paper, published in the journal Nature Medicine, researchers including those from the University of Texas at Austin, US, analysed physical activity data from 68 countries and found persistent inequalities in the ways people globally are active.
Access to active leisure, such as recreational exercise — the only activity type consistently driven by choice — was found to be 40 percentage points higher among socially advantaged groups (wealthy men in high-income countries), compared to the less-advantaged groups (poor women in low-income countries).
Physical activity driven by economic necessity, such as active labour, was found to be higher among disadvantaged populations.
In the third paper, published in the journal Nature Health, researchers including those from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, assessed 661 national policy documents to promote physical activity from 200 countries, developed between 2004 and 2025.
While most countries were analysed to have developed and adopted physical activity policies, evidence of implementation remains limited — 38.7 per cent (256) of the 661 policies analysed in the study assigned actions to three or more government sectors such as health and education, indicating a lack of cross-sectoral collaboration.
Through interviews with 46 key stakeholders — including government officials, academics, policy leaders, and civil society representatives — the researchers identified low but rising political priority for physical activity as a key barrier to implementation.
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