GREENSBORO, N.C. -- The Department of Health and Human Services released a physical activity guideline report for the first time in a decade.

  • The recommendations now include children for the first time
  • Report focuses on the amount of time people spend sitting
  • View full report

The recommendation for activity totals stayed the same, but for the first time children were included.

"We now have a generation of children who are becoming obese due partly to sedentary lifestyles," Janet Mayer said. She is a nutritionist with the Guilford County Health Department.

The report focuses on the amount of time people, both adults and children, spend sitting in a day. It's reached a point that school districts now try and integrate activity with learning. Officials are working with teachers to make sure kids don't set all day, but still focus on their lessons.

"For example, we've shown them a game of rock, paper, scissors where the students have to move from corner to corner in the room and solve an academic question in each corner before moving to the next spot," Sara Harmon of Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools said.

In the report 10 years ago, only activities that lasted at least 10 minutes counted towards the overall weekly goal. For example, an everyday activity like climbing a few flights of stairs didn't count.

"What they are now saying is to encourage people even if it only takes you five minutes to get up those steps to do everything and anything you can do to move more," Mayer said.

Kieon Dorsey, the fitness director for SportsCenter Athletic Club says there are plenty of ways people can include activity in their lives.

"Make it a conscious effort to get up and walk around. Whether its going to the break room, whether it's walking to the next cubicle over. Those small things add up," Dorsey said.

The full report can be found here.

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