A public health milestone: China publishes new Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour Guidelines

Physical inactivity has long been a global public health issue. In response to this, China published new Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour Guidelines for Chinese People in 2021 (PASBG 2021). This is a milestone in China’s public health, behavioural epidemiology and an important contribution to the Healthy China 2030 initiative. This commentary summarises the contents and highlighted the significance of the new guidelines. The new Chinese PASBG provide foundations for population-based estimates of healthy behaviours, strategies addressing physical inactivity and messages designed to encourage people to be more active. While the contents of the PASBG 2021 are mostly consistent with the World Health Organisation physical activity guidelines, it is unclear on what evidence they are based, and whether this included research in Chinese people. Physical activity research in China is very limited and it is urgently needed to advance national-based physical activity research in China in accordance with the behavioural epidemiology framework. The development of new PASBG is only the first step, now it is what is done to communicate and disseminate, provide opportunities and supportive environments that will make a difference to physical activity levels in China. As such, we hope the PASBG 2021 will not only become a document for educating Chinese people to move more, but also an impetus for improving population health research.