According to the WHO, one in three adults in Europe does not do enough sport

Are you athletic enough? According to a report by the OECD and the WHO, one in three adults in the European Union does not do enough sport. The trend has been aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has adverse health effects.

In 2016, 35.4% of adults in the 27 EU Member States were insufficiently active, according to World Health Organization criteria, which recommends 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week.

Almost half (45%) report that they never exercise or play sports, according to this report from the WHO and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Low levels of physical activity are also common among adolescents, especially girls: only 17.6% of boys and 9.6% of girls report meeting the WHO recommendation of at least one hour of exercise. moderate to vigorous physical activity per day.

And the situation doesn’t get better with age: only a quarter of adults over the age of 55 play a sport or exercise at least once a week.

Women are also less active than men. The difference between the sexes is obvious between 15 and 24 years old: 73% of men practice sports or exercise at least once a week, compared to 58% of women.

Socio-economic status also matters: only 24% of people who consider themselves to be working class say they exercise at least once a week, compared to 51% of people who consider themselves to be from a more affluent social category.

The Covid-19 pandemic has further aggravated the situation: while the lockdowns have pushed some adults to exercise more, the opposite has happened for most. More than half of Europeans have reduced their activity and only 7% plan to do more physical activity once the pandemic is over, the study points out.

But if everyone met the activity levels recommended by the WHO, more than 10,000 premature deaths of people aged 30 to 70 could be avoided each year. Life expectancy would increase by 7.5 months for people who are insufficiently active.

In addition, EU Member States would save 0.6% of their health budgets, the report points out.