Obesity and inactivity have been plaguing America for decades. Each year the problem grows worse despite the best efforts of public health officials, physicians, nutritionists, exercise experts, and individuals themselves. Why are Americans so out-of-shape when they know that it's destroying their health and attacking their pocketbooks? According to Dr. Toni Yancey, University of California professor and co-director of the UCLA Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity, "Nature, modern conveniences, popular pastimes like watching TV and playing video games, and the food industry itself make being sedentary more attractive than being active." In her new book, INSTANT RECESS: Building a Fit Nation 10 Minutes at a Time (University of California Press/November 2010), Yancey presents a practical approach to get America moving and back in shape.

Based on her own experiences running public health programs on both coasts, along with extensive scientific research, Yancey's method makes being active the easy choice. "All too often, you get excited about a new exercise program, but then life gets in the way," says Yancey, who has been appointed to the board of Partnership for a Healthier America, the non-profit organization supporting Michelle Obama's Let's Move initiative. "For people to stick with a more active lifestyle, it needs to be built into the very fabric of their work, school, and community lives. That's what Instant Recess is all about," she adds.

An Instant Recess break is a brief, low-impact, structured group activity for adults and kids. Typically done to music, it is integrated into the organizational routine at work, school, meetings, churches, sports stadiums - any settings in which people gather. "The concept of recess makes sense to most people, reminding them of a time in their lives when they enjoyed - even craved - the chance to run around and be free," explains Yancey, who has facilitated thousands of recess breaks in situations ranging from grant review committees, board of directors meetings, and health conferences. The key, she says, is making activity inescapable. "Everybody can participate - recess activities can be done anywhere, anytime, by anybody, in any attire," she writes.

An ideal opportunity for integrating Instant Recess into people's lives is the workplace. The bottom line benefits are multifold. Research suggests that structured physical activity during business hours means healthier employees as well as greater productivity, reduced absenteeism, and lower health care expenditures - all for little or no cost. From corporations to small business and from government agencies to non-profits, core strategies for building Instant Recess into the workday include:

• Incorporating ten-minute exercise breaks during lengthy meetings and at a scheduled time of the day;
• Making standing ovations, instead of sitting and clapping, the standard show of appreciation for speakers;
• Supporting exercise during the routine business day - through walking meetings, or scheduling sit-down meetings at a short distance from attendees' workspaces;
• Posting stair prompts and asking managers to take the lead in using stairs instead of elevators; and
• Including at least fifty percent healthy and competitively priced food choices in workplace vending machines and cafeteria.

In INSTANT RECESS, Yancey also offers a detailed look at the extensive work she and others have done to introduce activity into the lives of sedentary Americans in such diverse places as a charter school in Phoenix, a church in Winston-Salem, a health clinic and a sorority in Los Angeles. She describes what's effective and what doesn't work, common challenges faced by Instant Recess sites, and what's required to make Instant Recess a success. Moreover, she warns that health professionals' focus on nutrition has largely failed to make a dent in the obesity problem, and urges that the emphasis be shifted to give physical activity equal weight.

"Every minute of activity counts, and the less active you are, the more you gain from adding even a few minutes of movement," asserts Yancey. "It's time to put the policies and practices in place that will make it a lot easier for people to make the active choice and increasingly difficult for them to make the sedentary one. Easier, like getting the whole stadium up and dancing during halftime shows. Easier, like having people do dance routines with their co-workers on company time. Harder, like reserving nearby parking spots only for the disabled." Written in Yancey's down-to-earth and engaging style, INSTANT RECESS offers a fun, practical, and proven way to arrest the growth of the twin epidemics of inactivity and obesity, and rebuild a healthy America.

TONI YANCEY, MD, MPH is currently a professor in the Department of Health Services, UCLA School of Public Health, and is co-director of the UCLA Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity. She spent five years in public health practice, first as director of public health for the city of Richmond, Virginia, and as director of chronic disease prevention and health promotion, Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. Having authored more than a hundred scientific publications, she serves on the Institute of Medicine Standing Committee on Childhood Obesity Prevention and Health Literacy Roundtable, on the National Physical Activity Plan Coordinating Committee, and was recently appointed to the nine-member board of directors of the Partnership for a Healthier America, the nonprofit foundation supporting first lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move initiative. She has also been a public health commentator for the Los Angeles National Public Radio affiliate, KPCC, since 2006. For more information, please visit www.toniyancey.com.