Pre-agricultural period (4 000 000 BC until 8000 BC):
Hunting and gathering (nomadic societies) -> PA very high
Agricultural period (8 000 BC – 1800): Field work -> PA high (force)
Evidence: Step count per day for adults living in a Canadian Amish community was an average of 20000 steps for men and 15000 steps for women, because they don't use electricity.
Industrial period (1800-1945): Factory labour (manual labour and long and hard transport) -> PA level still relatively high
Nuclear/technological period (1945-present): Sedentary labour and transport -> PA too low - Hypokinetic diseases
People have only realised in the 80s how important physical activity is
Initially it was celebrated that people didn't need to do activities with the technological period (ex: home elevators for healthy young people).
People have only realized since the 80’s that physical inactivity is lethal.
In this longitudinal study they found a correlation between increased risk of mortality and fitness level.
They also found that being just a little bit more fit reduced the risk of dying by a lot.
Human evolution
PA promotion is a very recent problem in human evolution: In contrast to our past, most of the PA that is become necessary for health must be freely chosen in leisure time or consciously integrated into one’s normal daily routine (active living). Hence it is important to:
Study the psychological processes, such as motivation and decision-making
(Re-)Design constructed and social environment to make healthy choices easy
