One in three adults in Europe does not do enough sport, which is detrimental to health, stresses the WHO

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 does not improve with age: only a quarter of adults over 55 practice 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.

Socioeconomic condition also influences: 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 wealthier social category.

The Covid-19 pandemic has made the situation even worse: if the confinements have pushed some adults to do more sport, 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.

However, if everyone respected 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, the Member States of the European Union would save 0.6% of their health budget, underlines this report.