Getting patients moving: is activity promotion paying off?

A major thrust of the Healthy People 2010 initiative, introduced in 2000, was to increase physical activity. As we move nearly a third of the way toward the deadline, is there any progress to report? "I don't think we're doing very well," says Ross Andersen, PhD, who edited a special issue on Healthy People 2010 for The Physician and Sportsmedicine. Andersen is an associate professor in the division of geriatric medicine and gerontology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore "Activity levels have been stagnant over the past 10 years," he says.