One adult in four does nothing in their leisure time

Regular physical activity **improves overall health and reduces the risk of
heart disease, stroke and premature death.** For people who already have
cardiovascular disease it helps manage it: **exercise training has a positive
effect in certain types of heart failure**, and cardiac rehabilitation,
which includes activity training, improves health after a heart attack or
bypass surgery.

How far off we are

The first figure is the sharper one. Not "not enough exercise" — **no
leisure-time physical activity at all**, for a quarter of adults.

What works

The US Preventive Services Task Force recommends **intensive behavioural
counselling to promote physical activity for people with known cardiovascular
risk factors** — intensive, and targeted at people already at risk, rather
than general advice to everybody.

And the other half of the evidence base is not about persuasion at all:

Designing safe community spaces that encourage activity.

A person who would walk more if the route existed is not helped by being told
that walking is healthy. Strategies are meant to be put into action **where
people live, learn, work and play** — which is a statement about pavements,
parks and transport as much as about clinics.

Active People, Healthy Nation

An initiative to help **27 million Americans become more physically active by
2027**, bringing together health, education, transportation, business and other
sectors, and supporting communities to implement proven strategies identified
by the Community Preventive Services Task Force.

The presence of transportation and business on that list is the point:
the sectors that decide whether daily life involves movement are not the health
sector.

Move Your Way carries the individual-level version — tips, videos and fact
sheets built on the premise that **small changes add up to big health
benefits**.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.