Is there a need for mental health informed goal setting in physical activity?

Goals are standard practice when promoting physical activity for mental health and wellbeing and for the management of mental health disorders. While there are benefits of setting physical activity goals, there are also known risks, side-effects, and detrimental outcomes. We illustrate how these can potentially exacerbate mental health symptoms. Given the high rates of mental health disorders worldwide, we argue that mental health informed goal setting is needed in physical activity and may be relevant to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. We present recommendations for setting mental health informed physical activity goals to minimise/avoid the risks of exacerbating mental health symptoms as well as maximising benefits for both physical and mental health. • There is a risk that physical activity goals can exacerbate mental health symptoms • Mental health informed physical activity goals are needed to minimise these risks • This need potentially applies to hundreds of millions of individuals worldwide