Active Lives study shows “record numbers” playing sport

The number of people playing sport and taking part in physical activity in England is at the “highest level on record”, according to Sport England.

The latest Active Lives Adult Survey Report – published by Sport England – shows that nearly two thirds (63.7%) of the adult population now meet the Chief Medical Officers’ guidelines of doing 150 minutes, or more, of moderate intensity physical activity a week.

The report covers the 12-month period between November 2023 and November 2024. Encouragingly, the number of inactive adults – deemed as those doing less than 30 minutes of activity a week – decreased by 121,000 during the year from 2023 to 2024.

However, the data also underlines that many long-standing inequalities remain. Women from lower socio-economic groups, however, along with Black and Asian people, are still less likely to be active than others. When a person has two or more of these characteristics – such as a black disabled person, or an Asian man from a lower socio-economic group – the results are compounded.

In some cases, the inequalities have increased. This is certainly the case when it comes to activity levels between affluence groups.

Among the most affluent, activity levels increased by 1.6% when compared to eight years ago (November 2016). In contrast, among the least affluent, the proportion active has fallen by 2.5% over the same period.