Spain is below the world average: 25% do not do any physical activity
31 percent of the world’s adult population, that is, almost 1.8 billion adults, do not do any type of physical activity and are at risk of getting sick from it, especially women, which represents an increase of six percent between 2010 and 2022, as revealed by new data presented by the World Health Organization (WHO) and published in an article in ‘The Lancet Global Health’.
The results point to a “worrying” trend of physical inactivity among adults, going from 24 percent in 2010 to 31 percent in 2022. As highlighted by WHO experts at the press conference presenting the study, if Trend continues, inactivity levels are projected to continue rising to reach 35 percent by 2030, and the world is currently far from meeting the global goal of reducing physical inactivity by 2030.
However, Spain is below the world average since only 25 percent of the population does not do any type of physical activity, with women being more inactive than men.
Currently, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that adults engage in 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity, or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity physical activity, or equivalent, per week, so failure to comply with these recommendations It would be within the concept of “physical inactivity”, where a third of the world’s population is found.
In this context, the director of health promotion at the WHO, Dr. Ruediger Krech, has warned that inactivity is “a silent threat to global health” since it “contributes significantly to the burden of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases.” , cancer, diabetes or respiratory diseases.
“In 10 years, 500 million new cases of non-communicable diseases could be avoided, at a cost to the public health system of 300 billion dollars, if populations reached the recommended levels of physical activity. Physical activity must be accessible, affordable and pleasant for everyone so that we can significantly reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases and mental disorders,” he noted.
On the other hand, the data also reveal a continuation of the trend of women being less active than men, with inactivity rates of 34 versus 29 percent, “increasing in some countries to 20 percent and in more than a third of countries is higher than 10 percent,” highlighted the Head of Surveillance, Monitoring and Reporting, Department of Noncommunicable Diseases at WHO, Dr. Leanne Riley.
Likewise, the highest rates of physical inactivity are seen in the high-income Asia-Pacific region (48%) and South Asia (45%), while inactivity levels in other regions range from 28 percent of high-income Western countries, including Spain, and 14 percent of Oceania.
Additionally, people over 60 are less active than other adults, underscoring the importance of promoting physical activity among older adults.
As highlighted by experts, there are multiple reasons why physical inactivity is increasing around the world, including changes in work patterns (trend towards more sedentary work), changes in the environment, that make active transportation difficult, and changes in leisure activities, that is, more sedentary activities in front of a screen.
Given these data, the World Health Organization calls on countries to strengthen the application of policies that promote and facilitate physical activity.
