| DEFINITIONS: Old: The previous guideline advised people to complete 30 minutes of at least moderate exercise 5 days a week New: The revised activity guideline advises people to accumulate 150 minutes of moderate activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week. Home-based activities were classified as either ‘moderate’ or ‘light’ depending on their nature. Participants were given examples of types of housework, gardening, building work and DIY which were described as either ‘heavy’ or ‘light.’ All cases of ‘heavy’ home-based activity were classified as being of ‘moderate’ physical intensity. Light gardening, building work and DIY were all classified as ‘light’ physical intensity. Due to its very low intensity, light housework was not included in the calculations of physical activity in this report. For walking, participants were asked to assess their usual walking pace as ‘slow’, ‘steady average’, ‘fairly brisk’ or ‘fast – at least 4mph.’ For adults aged 16-64, walks of 10 minutes or more at a brisk or fast pace were classified as being of ‘moderate’ intensity. Walks at a slow or steady average pace were classified as ‘light.’ For adults aged 65 and over, walks of 10 minutes or more at a pace described as ‘slow’ or ‘steady average’ were also classified as being of ‘moderate’ intensity if participants said that walking at that pace had resulted in them breathing faster, sweating or feeling warmer. The intensity levels of different sports and exercises was determined by a combination of (a) the MET level of the activity and (b) the participant’s assessment of the amount of effort it involved. For example, all instances of playing squash, football or rugby were counted as ‘vigorous’ intensity. Other activities, however, like swimming or cycling, were only counted as ‘vigorous’ if the participant reported that the effort involved was enough to make them ‘out of breath or sweaty;’ if not, they were classified as ‘moderate’ intensity. Similarly, other activities, like yoga/pilates, counted as ‘moderate’ if they made the participant out of breath or sweaty, but ‘light’ if not. People who reported being ‘very physically active’ at work were classified as moderately active and an estimate of the time spent being active per week was derived from the answer to the question about how much they spent sitting on a typical day at work, and their full or part-time working status. All other responses were counted as light or inactive. No one was classified as vigorously active at work. This approach represents a departure from previous years when activities at work were classified using a combination of (a) the participant’s assessment of how active they are in their job (described above), and (b) the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code assigned to their job type. |