Routledge Handbook of Physical Activity and Health

This handbook is a comprehensive guide for anyone interested in how physical activity can contribute to solving many challenges of the 21st century. It provides fundamental background information on the history, biological mechanisms and epidemiological evidence linking physical activity with physical and mental health.

The Routledge Handbook of Physical Activity and Health provides students, researchers, policy makers and practitioners with a comprehensive reference work in the field of physical activity and health. This new and authoritative text covers essential current and emerging topics in physical activity and health in the areas of mechanisms, epidemiology, determinants, measurement, interventions, and policy. The handbook also delivers chapter specific practical recommendations for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. The Handbook details fundamental background information on the history and development of physical activity and health and its many benefits for population physical and mental health and specific clinical groups. It outlines the latest evidence of how effective physical activity interventions are, and how they contribute co-benefits in different sectors, including transport and community planning, sport, mitigating climate change and how benefits can be demonstrated through comprehensive evaluation, including economic evaluation. Physical activity and health is a broad and wide-reaching field that is relevant to many areas, including exercise and sport science, public health, urban and transport planning, occupational health and clinical medicine. The Routledge Handbook of Physical Activity and Health will be an essential resource for researchers, students, policy makers and other professionals in these and many other related disciplines.