DGS wants more doctors to prescribe physical exercise
A sedentary lifestyle and childhood obesity have been getting worse in Portugal.
Lack of physical exercise is a serious problem.
The Portuguese exercise less and less. In 2023, Portugal was the worst ranked among the 27 member states of the European Union. According to reports released by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Health Organization (WHO), 45 percent of the population engaged in less than 150 minutes of physical activity per week — not meeting the WHO’s minimum criteria for a healthy diet.
In the hope of combating this trend, the Directorate-General for Health issued a recommendation to family doctors to start prescribing exercise to users.
The DGS intends to have a broader record of data on physical activity that will now cover the population under 15 years of age. Currently, only three percent of adults have access to this information in the SNS computer system. Although guidance has already been given to health centers, professionals guarantee that they already record several parameters and that the time they have per consultation is not enough.
They admit that they recognize that SNS records are important for devising strategies, but they also state that the message has been passed on to patients, thus suggesting a more viable alternative.
“We ask that registration be made easier and that it be done by the user themselves. That these facilitate our activity and that they are not too demanding for what our clinical practice is”, explained António Luz Pereira, the vice-president of Portuguese Association of General Family Medicineto SIC.
According to the COSI Portugal study, in 2022, around 31.9 percent of Portuguese children are overweight and the prevalence increases with age. Already 13.5 percent of children suffer from childhood obesity, with the problem being more pronounced in boys than in girls.
