Man and humankind in motion – how active is mankind today?

Being physically active is fundamental to maintaining good health and plays an important role in childrens development. In adults, but also in children and adolescents, activity levels have been declining for years and sitting times are increasing, with the result that the physical activity recommendations developed by the WHO are no longer being achieved by everyone. The reasons for this lie in the changed living environment, which is becoming increasingly inactive. This trend has become even more pronounced due to the restrictions imposed by the corona virus pandemic. This particularly affected 10 to 17-year-olds, 50% of whom have reduced their activity time; this figure was 26% for 3 to 5-year-olds and 37% for 6 to 9-year-olds. Overall, 70% of children and young people have increased their (inactive) media time. There is an urgent need to design exercise programmes to increase physical activity by children and young people. The finding that sport is practised because it is fun would be helpful here. Furthermore, the lack of staff in day-care centres must be remedied, as this has proven to be the most important inhibiting factor for the implementation of physical activity programmes. As behavioural patterns are already formed in early childhood, the focus for promoting physical activity should be on the day-care centre setting.