Mutual Impact of Climate Change and Physical Activity: Review and Prospect

This paper presents a bibliometric and thematic analysis of 164 English-language articles on climate change and physical activity, based on the data from the Web of Science Core Collection. The results reveal that: ① The research in this field started relatively late, but the international academic attention has rapidly increased. ② There was a mutual influence between climate change and physical activity. Climate change affected the timing, location, and manner of physical activity participation, further impacting the individual physical and mental health and social sustainable development. While travel and food consumption related to physical activity did generate carbon emissions, active transportation and other forms of physical activity played a more significant role in climate change adaptation and mitigation. ③ The research was characterized by interdisciplinary integration and international collaboration, with a trend towards quantitative methods and diverse data collection approaches. Future studies should comprehensively evaluate the impact of climate change on physical activity, quantify its effects on social sustainability, and accurately measure the carbon reduction benefits of physical activity.