THURSDAY, July 2, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- Movement breaks are a potentially feasible and effective public health strategy to reduce the harms of prolonged sedentary behavior, according to a study published online June 23 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Keith M. Diaz, Ph.D., from Columbia University in New York City, and colleagues assessed the effectiveness on psychosocial outcomes and optimal dosing of movement breaks in naturalistic settings to offset the harms of sedentary behavior. Analysis included 19,342 adults enrolled in a two-week pragmatic intervention embedded within an interactive podcast that included five-minute walking breaks at a self-selected break frequency of every 30, 60, or 120 minutes.
The researchers reported that 59.4 percent of participants initiated the intervention for 30 (32 percent), 60 (47 percent), or 120 minutes (21 percent) for 14 days, with all three arms exceeding the viability threshold (>3.0) for implementation outcomes. At lower break frequencies, feasibility was higher (feasibility of intervention measures: 30 minutes = 3.41; 60 minutes = 3.80; 120 minutes = 4.01), while acceptability and appropriateness were high across arms (acceptability of intervention measures: 30 minutes = 3.91; 60 minutes = 4.03; 120 minutes = 4.03; appropriateness of intervention measures: 30 minutes = 4.00; 60 minutes = 4.04; 120 minutes = 3.99). There were significant decreases in reported fatigue and negative affect, and positive affect significantly increased across all arms. There was a dose-response pattern in improvements, with the 30-minute and 60-minute arms exceeding minimal important difference (MID) thresholds for fatigue (change: 30 minutes = −1.55; 60 minutes = −1.41; 120 minutes = −1.19) and positive affect (change: 30 minutes = 1.86; 60 minutes = 1.65; 120 minutes = 1.27). Only the 30-minute arm exceeded the threshold for negative affect (change: 30 minutes = −1.00; 60 minutes = −0.92; 120 minutes = −0.67).
"The 60-minute arm offered the most favorable balance, yielding acceptability and appropriateness ratings comparable to the 120-minute arm, and exceeding MID thresholds for two of three psychosocial outcomes," the authors write. "In addition, it was the most commonly selected dose; selected by nearly half of all participants."
