The latest Active Lives report lays bare the impact of the disruption caused by the pandemic on the nation’s activity levels, though Surrey fares less badly than the national average. Could our decline be due to less commuting?
Sport England’s twice-yearly report suggests that a million more people nationally were classed as officially inactive in the period May 2020 – May 2021.
Inequalities have also widened, with those most in need of being active often falling behind their neighbours. These findings come at a time when studies are increasingly pointing to the link between people’s activity levels and better health outcomes.
Health impacts
Moving more has been shown to help reduce diabetes, heart disease, cancers and even dementia, but a recent study of 48,000 COVID-positive cases in the USA reported “Other than age, pregnancy and a history of organ transplant, being consistently inactive conferred the highest odds for hospitalisation with COVID-19".
People are classed as inactive if they do less than 30 mins of any sort of sustained physical activity in a week. They are classed as fully active if they meet the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines of 150 minutes of movement, which includes active travel such as walking or cycling in addition to formal sport and fitness.
Despite these known health benefits the national figures show 60.9% of people were active, down 1.9% on the same period a year ago (which were already lower than 2018/19 thanks to early COVID disruption), with ‘inactives’ up 2%.
Surrey-specific results show a drop of 1.3% in those deemed fully active, but a more marked increase in people classed as inactive of 1.7%.
Disabled people, those from poorer households and from ethnically diverse backgrounds were all less active. And the loss of the daily commute for many in Surrey may have contributed to our drop, with walking for travel falling 45% across England year on year.
Where activity falls, mental wellbeing follows
In addition to physical health, the report clearly shows the link between activity levels and mental wellbeing.
Everyone experienced a rise in negative feelings during the pandemic – with the most affluent being the most affected - but whatever people’s circumstances those classified as fully active consistently outscore inactive people in every reported measure and are less anxious and lonely.
Commenting on the results, Active Surrey Managing Director Lil Duggan said:
“These year-on-year results illustrate how the events of the last 12+ months continue to affect people’s ability to stay active. As we move into the winter months with spikes in COVID cases, it is vital that we keep physically active for our wellbeing as well as to help fight off winter bugs and prevent long term conditions.
“It’s great to see leisure facilities open and community clubs welcoming visitors again. Even if you are no longer commuting to work, carve out some time to get moving, like swapping that car journey for a walk to the shops.”
ENDS
The latest national Active Lives report, covering May 2020 – May 2021 can be viewed via https://www.sportengland.org/news/sport-and-physical-activity-must-be-used-level-and-tackle-inequalities .
Figures for Surrey received to date can be viewed on the Movement for Change page on the Active Surrey website at https://www.activesurrey.com/movement-for-change