Physical activity between health promotion and citizenship rights

Several data show that regular physical activity has significant benefits on physical health and psychological wellbeing. The costs of sedentary lifestyles are recognized and suggest the need of working towards physical activity promotion in health policy and in other relevant sectors. Nevertheless in Italy the data show a trend of increasing inactivity rate. One of the main challenge for Sport and Exercise Psychologists is to contribute to develop health promotion programs, developing correct strategies in order to help people to establish active life style habits early in life and to maintain these behaviors throughout their lives. Examples of these programs are described in the paper.