Recommendations for promoting physical activity for children and adolescents in Germany. A consensus statement.

Increasing physical activity and reduction of sedentary behaviour play important roles in health promotion and prevention of lifestyle-related diseases in children and adolescents. However, the question of how much physical activity is useful for which target group is still a matter of debate. International guidelines (World Health Organization; European Association for the Study of Obesity), which are mainly based on expert opinions, recommend 60 min of physical activity every day.

'Healthy children in sound communities' (HCSC/gkgk)--a Dutch-German community-based network project to counteract obesity and physical inactivity.

Background: In 12 municipalities at the German-Dutch border an integrated approach of a multi-component intervention programme (physical activity, nutrition, public health, improvement of the physical environment) to enhance an active lifestyle has been implemented in 39 primary schools for a 4-year longitudinal intervention and evaluation study.

Objective: A weekly lesson plan, including 3 hours of health enhanced physical education and two additional hours of physical activities offered by sport clubs to balance motor deficits and to reduce overweight and obesity was implemented. Furthermore, another hour of cross-curricular education of health and nutrition education is part of the school curriculum.