34 According to our study, approximately one-third

of Finnish working-age women and half selleck chem of working-age men meet the current recommendations for aerobic physical activity. The proportion is especially low among overweight and obese women and obese men. On the basis of this and our other observations, the amount of physical activity, especially the amount of VPA, seems to be very low among overweight and obese individuals, particularly women. As our study is cross-sectional in nature, it does not show the direction of causality between physical activity and obesity. However, this evidence shows the vicious cycle between obesity and physical inactivity.35 The low number of obese individuals meeting the recommendations and their low starting level (with regard to total amount, duration and intensity) should be taken into account when implementing interventions for increasing physical activity. For obese individuals, the amount of MPA or perhaps low-intensity activity should be increased first. Among obese individuals, objectively measured physical activity seems to be low, during leisure and at work. Thus, leisure hours and working hours need to be considered when recording the activity interventions. Overall, the documentation

of physical activity levels as a part of routine healthcare check should be improved.36 Unanswered questions and future research In the light of our findings, long-term controlled intervention studies are needed to show whether MPA or VPA as the main component of intervention programmes has a better benefit–risk balance for obese individuals in terms of adherence, weight control, morbidity and mortality. Also, more detailed research is needed on whether short bouts

of physical activity lead to long-term health benefits comparable to longer bouts at the disease-outcome level. Accurate methods of monitoring physical Dacomitinib activity that cover cardiorespiratory loading are also needed to carry out large-scale studies on these topics and to analyse whether specific types of short-term activity provide health benefits. Notably, some physical activity is under the intensity level of 3 METs, which was not taken into account in our current analysis. Long-term intervention studies on the effects of physical activity of (very) low intensity on disease outcomes are lacking. Supplementary Material Author’s manuscript: Click here to view.(3.4M, pdf) Reviewer comments: Click here to view.(204K, pdf) Acknowledgments The authors thank Firstbeat Technologies Ltd for providing the data for analysis.