Dear reader – what did you do today? Work? Study? Caring for children? And hopefully something to help unwind before doing it all again tomorrow. But did you get active today? Ah exercise; like flossing, reading and calling our parents, for many of us it feels like something that we should do more of, but for one reason and other we don’t quite get around to as much as we’d like (sorry mum).
What’s physical activity ever done for us?
But does it really matter? And why are we talking about it here, in this serious policy blog? This is a place for discussing wicked issues and the innovation and policy responses that might solve them, and rightly so. But what you may not realise is that physical activity (not sport – we’ll come to that later) can be at the heart of many of the intractable issues communities, cities and nations face the world over. Physical activity, or what we will for the rest of this piece call ‘movement’, has an extraordinary range of benefits, from preventing bowel cancer to improving sleep quality and mental health.
Figure: The benefits of regular physical activity – source: Active Surrey
The benefits are so far-reaching that the UK chief medical officers have said:
“if physical activity were a drug, we would refer to it as a miracle cure, due to the great many illnesses it can prevent and help treat”.
Not bad for getting ourselves off the sofa each day, eh? But as French sociologist, Émile Durkheim showed us, even those actions we consider most personal and individual are products of our wider social system, and the benefits of moving more go far beyond the individual.
When we move the economy wins
The market for personal fitness is booming, projected to be worth more than $200 billion by 2030. The OECD and WHO found every EUR 1 invested in physical-activity policies returns about EUR 1.70 in economic benefits. Even better, EU Member States could save approximately £8 billion a year of their health care budget if everyone met the WHO recommended levels of movement.
And the cost of doing nothing? That’s even clearer. Across our cities and countries, lack of movement is leading to long-term productivity costs as high as €4300 per inactive person compared to someone who’s regularly moving. And what does this number look like globally? Well, in 2013 it amounted to around $68 billion. So, at a time when governments everywhere are eager for savings, movement matters.
Current policy efforts aren’t cutting it
The case is clear. Yet our own individual experiences of not doing that run you really meant to do, or skipping yoga yet again, might mean we’re unsurprised that inactivity and a lack of movement is an issue across OECD countries. But scale of this issue may shock you.
Despite a range of policy programmes and national interventions, we regularly find that nearly half of the adult population aren’t getting the recommended level of movement. For instance, I live in the UK where about 25% of adults are physically inactive and 53% of children and young people are not getting at least 60 minutes of activity a day. This is despite Get Active: A Strategy for the Future of Sport and Physical Activity, which aims for 2.5 million more active adults and 1 million more active children by 2030. And for my OECD friends in France it’s pretty grim with about 50% of adults are insufficiently physically active, well above the EU average despite the efforts of the PNNS (Programme National Nutrition Santé). If these are the statistics, why do we still see too many examples of well-meaning but ultimately ineffective ‘one size fits all’ national initiatives?
| Country | Approximate Prevalence of Insufficient Physical Activity | Policy / Program |
| Germany | More than 50% of adults in Germany do not meet WHO physical activity recommendations for moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity per week. (Robert Koch Institute) | IN FORM – Germany’s National Initiative to Promote Healthy Diets and Physical Activity, run by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Federal Ministry of Health. (BMEL) |
| France | About 50% of French adults are insufficiently physically active (2015 study; OECD/WHO also identify France as above EU average). (PubMed; WHO/OECD) | PNNS (Programme National Nutrition Santé) – national plan including physical activity guidelines and promotion of active lifestyles. (French Ministry of Health) |
| United Kingdom | About 25% of adults in England are physically inactive and 53% of children and young people are not meeting the guidance of taking part in at least 60 minutes of activity a day. (BBC Sport) | Get Active: A Strategy for the Future of Sport and Physical Activity (2023) – UK government plan aiming for 2.5m more active adults and 1m more active children by 2030. (UK Gov) |
| Canada | Only 51% of Canadian adults and 44% of children do not meet recommended activity levels. (Government of Canada) | ParticipACTION – national non-profit funded by Government of Canada, promoting daily activity via campaigns like the Community Challenge and report cards. (ParticipACTION) |
| United States | About 27% of U.S. adults are inactive (do not do any moderate activity beyond daily living) and 53% of adults do not meet meeting the aerobic physical activity guidelines. (CDC) | Active People, Healthy Nation – CDC initiative to get 27 million more Americans active by 2027. (CDC) |
| Japan | Approximate 27% of people in Japan reported doing no sport/physical activity at all in the past year (SSF survey). (SSF) | Health and Productivity Management – Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) programme encouraging companies to integrate employee health promotion (including activity). (METI) |
How do governments fix lack of movement?
A recent OECD policy paper looked at community-based initiatives in Spain, France, Austria, Germany and Switzerland to see what actually works when it comes to improving public health. The takeaway? Where we live has a profound impact on our movement and understanding the dynamics of place is key to designing polices that actually work.
Short-term top-down policy interventions often leave those least likely to be active least likely to engage. Instead, real change can happen when local governments, grassroots groups and residents come together in a community to design solutions that fit their own political, social or economic realities.
That was certainly our experience at Active Bradford, a charity I used to lead, which focused on getting children between 5-14 active to take a place-specific whole systems approach, focused on areas where the inequality in physical activity is greatest.
With funding support from Sport England, we created the JU:MP (Join Us: Move Play) intervention, embedding physical activity not merely into health strategies and policies, but also into education, planning and transport. We rolled the program out across eight neighbourhoods, reaching about 30 000 local children. The aim? To increase capability, opportunity and motivation for movement. The results? The highest increase in children’s physical activity ever recorded by an intervention of its kind.
Time to get moving
So, you might be wondering how can you make a difference right now (probably while reading this on your phone or laptop)? And to that I say, disconnect physical activity from sport (but keep the benefits). We should talk more about movement and less about sport or activity.
Sport can be a wonderful force for good, however, for some, the term ‘physical activity’ conjures PE horror stories, team dynamics that make the Lord of the Flies look like a friendly camping trip, and a general feeling that sport isn’t for ‘them’. Framing matters. We need to make movement the easy, logical choice in people’s lives.
So, whether you’re a policy maker, politician or practitioner, getting people to move more is one of the most significant things you can do to advance social wellbeing and unlock a range of benefits. It’s time think long-term and treat movement as essential, not a nice to have.
And its time we started backing local policies and programmes that ensure movement is part of everyday life and I hope this will have provided some inspiration to do so. But once you’ve filled that new policy paper or intervention idea – do remember to get up yourself and go for a walk, eh? And maybe call your parents whilst you’re at it.
For further reading, take a look at the OECD report Step Up! Tackling the Burden of Insufficient Physical Activity in Europe.
Sam is an experienced leader with nearly 20 years of experience in the public, political and charity sectors. Having held senior positions in British politics and government, including serving as a Shadow Cabinet Special Advisor for the Labour party, and Head of Policy at the Department for Education, his most recent role was as CEO of the charity Active Bradford.
Throughout his career Sam has sought roles to help enact positive social change and has played a leading role in securing national policy shifts including: creating a new offence of assaulting an emergency worker, securing the right of Syrian refuges to settle in the UK, and securing £100m DFID funding for polio eradication.
He is now undertaking a Masters in Social Innovation at the University of Cambridge, with a research focus on how innovation can be developed and embedded in the working practices of political leaders.