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Exercise

Two sets of US guidelines have revised the public health advice on physical activity to clarify that gentle exercise is not enough to improve health, The Guardian reported. Current guidelines suggest that 30 minutes of exercise a day is enough to offer health benefits, however the newspaper said that adults “need to add jogging and twice-weekly weight-training sessions if they want to cut their risk of heart disease and obesity.” The newspaper reports that “the lightest of activities such as dusting and the stroll to the car are being counted as exercise” and quotes the researchers as saying that people have “not accepted, and others have misinterpreted the original recommendation.” The expert panel process and the recommendations offered have clarified some of the more unclear recommendations that were published in 1995. The group of experts met in 2000 to prepare this update, and this was supplemented by panel members’ own searches of the literature. It is not possible to validate the strength of evidence behind this policy advice.

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