Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

The Financial Burden Of Physical Inactivity, Li Li

Department of Health Sciences and Kinesiology Faculty Publications

According to the World Health Organization, “physical inactivity has been identified as the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality causing an estimated 3.2 million (annual) deaths globally.”¹

In the Research Highlight of the first issue of this journal, I reviewed the evidence which supports the notion that physical inactivity can cost lives, in terms of longevity and quality of life, especially in the last few years of our lives.² Here, I would like to review the literature that reveals the financial burden due to physical inactivity.

In a classic paper, Katzmarzyk and Janssen³ estimated that the …