With the Olympic and Paralympic games but a year behind us, you’d think we’d still have the proverbial torch burning bright. After seeing the nation’s best athletes storm to victory, surely we’re all still tying up our running shoe laces and breaking out the badminton rackets? Not according to a new study, as researchers from the University of Bristol have found that most adults in England are risking their well-being by failing to get enough exercise. Tam Fry, spokesman for the National Obesity Forum and honorary chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, commented that “No-one should be at all surprised by these woeful statistics,” and blamed the government for failing to make the London 2012 Olympics inspiring enough for getting us to participate in grassroots sport.
The government target that fitness and wellness involves taking moderate exercise at least 12 times in a four-week period. However, when the researchers analysed exercise data for more than a million adults in England, they found that 80% have failed to meet this target. Those who were poorer and least educated were more likely to be in this group, while better-off and better-educated adults were most likely to exercise. The perhaps most concerning finding was that approximately 8% of adults who were physically able to walk had not walked for even five minutes continuously during a four-week period, while 46% had not walked for leisure for more than 30 minutes continuously. In terms of other activities, 90% of those studied had not been to the gym and 88% had not been swimming.
The study researchers noted that those with no qualifications were three times as likely to not exercise, while people with a degree only had a 12% chance of being inactive, and those with higher socioeconomic status also got plenty of exercise. Therefore, the study results indicate a correlation between your education, household income and local area deprivation and your level of physical activity. According to Carol Propper, professor of economics at the university’s Centre for Market and Public Organisation, “Physical inactivity is the most important modifiable health behaviour for chronic disease, so knowing who is physically inactive is important for designing cost-effective policy interventions.” She added that “financial as well as cultural barriers need to be overcome to reduce the prevalence of physical inactivity”.