Prescription of physical activity

摘要

Philipe de Souto Barreto raises an important issue in response to our Comment1 on the need for more prescription of physical activity by physicians. How prepared are doctors to do so? A survey of 31 medical schools in the UK reported that physical activity education in the undergraduate curriculum is virtually non-existent.2 The situation is not much better in the USA, where only 13% of medical schools feature physical activity education within their curriculum.3 Although we were unable to find statistics, this situation is likely to be more dire in medical schools in low-income and middle-income countries.