Topline
Roughly 25% of U.S. adults are physically inactive, according to a study released Thursday from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – SEPTEMBER 14: Runners jog along the recently refurbished Kite Beach … [+]
Key Facts
A survey conducted by the CDC and state health departments asked Americans if they participated in activities such as “running, calisthenics, golf, gardening, or walking for exercise,” outside of their regular job in the prior month.
Nationwide, 25.3% of adults answered “no.”
The CDC collected data from 2017-20 from 49 states (New Jersey did not collect data in 2019), the District of Columbia and the territories of Puerto Rico and Guam.
Puerto Rico adults had the highest level of inactivity at 49.4%, with Colorado the lowest at 17.7%.
Regionally, adults in the South had the highest level of inactivity at 27.5%, compared to the West’s nationwide low of 21%.
Hispanic adults were the most inactive racial/ethnic group with 32.1% responding “no,” followed by non-Hispanic Black adults (30%), non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native adults (29.1%), non-Hispanic White Adults (23%) and non-Hispanic Asian Adults (20.1%).
Key Background
In the survey, the CDC pointed to barriers to physical activity — a lack of safe spaces to exercise, unsafe parks and streets, poor street infrastructure, a lack of time or a lack of social support — as reasons for the racial and ethnic disparities in physical inactivity.
Surprising Fact
When broken down by year, inactivity nationwide was at its lowest (22.7%) in 2020 since 2011, the earliest year for which the CDC provides data.
Section Title
An August survey that plucked answers from nearly 13,000 people across 139 countries found that the number of people who exercise one to two times per week increased 88% during the coronavirus pandemic. The survey, which came from the running shoe-review company RunRepeat, also showed a 14% decrease in those who exercise four or more times a week. This contrasts with some surveys from the early months of the pandemic, which found people were exercising less during confinement.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/masonbissada/2022/01/20/25-of-us-adults-are-physically-inactive-outside-of-work-cdc-says/