Details

Purpose:

Vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA) refers to brief and sporadic bouts (lasting 1 to 2 mins) of vigorous-intensity physical activity incorporated as part of daily living (e.g., bursts of fast walking while commuting to work or stair climbing). This symposium brings international experts together to explore the potential of time-efficient ways to achieve sufficient physical activity, focusing on VILPA. Speakers will introduce the emerging concept of VILPA and its health potential, report findings from recent large-scale device-based VILPA studies, and discuss the implementation of the recently published VILPA research framework (Stamatakis et al., 2021) covering measurement and interventions in middle-aged and older adults.

Rationale:

Insufficient physical activity is a global issue, and a perceived lack of time is a key factor. Recent evidence suggests that accumulating short bouts of vigorous physical activity incorporated into daily activities could be a promising solution to addressing the problem of insufficient physical activity. However, more research is warranted to explore the types of daily activities that could achieve vigorous intensity, develop accurate capture and measurement of these activities, and promote short bouts of vigorous lifestyle physical activities.

Objectives:

Speakers will present their collective work on the VILPA concept and its origin. Research examining VILPA health effects, device-based VILPA measurement, intervention development and implementation will be presented.

 This symposium aims to:

    - Provide insight into the concept of VILPA and an overview of the contemporary VILPA research

    - Discuss the opportunities and challenges of measurement of VILPA, intervention development and implementation

    - Generate discussion with researchers keen on working on VILPA and encourage future collaboration

Summary:

Presentations will include:

1) results of the first three prospective VILPA studies examining the associations of VILPA with mortality and incident cardiovascular disease and cancer;

2) accurate measurement of VILPA using accelerometers;

3) the development and implementation of a VILPA intervention.

This symposium will be particularly interesting to those working with large-scale biomedical data, accelerometer measurements, and physical activity promotion.

Format:

The symposium will be chaired and opened (10 mins) by Associate Professor Jo McVeigh (Curtin University). This will be followed by three presentations of 15 minutes each.

    - Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis (University of Sydney)

    - Dr Matthew Ahmadi (University of Sydney)

    - Miss Bingyan Pang (Curtin University)

Interaction:

The discussant, Professor Cecilie Thøgersen-Ntoumani (University Southern Denmark), will consolidate key points from the presentations, discuss future work associated with VILPA and lead audience discussion (20 minutes).  

Speaker