Record exercise levels “mask England’s growing health divide”

England is more physically active than at any point in the past decade, but reflecting on figures reveals a stark divide in who is benefiting from the nation’s growing appetite for physical activity.

Sport England’s Active Lives Adult Survey, published this year, shows 64.6% of adults (30.9 million people) achieved at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity a week. That represents a record high and an increase of 859,000 active adults in just one year.

Behind the positive national headline, however, significant physical activity inequality remains.

Just 53.8% of adults from the least affluent backgrounds are active, compared with 73.2% among the most affluent. Activity levels are also considerably lower among disabled people and those with long-term health conditions, older adults and some ethnic groups. The divide affecting people living with disability is particularly striking.

Activity Alliance’s analysis of the same Active Lives data found that 39.3% of disabled adults are inactive, compared with just 19.7% of non-disabled adults. This means disabled people are almost twice as likely to be physically inactive. Activity Alliance says the inactivity gap has widened, from 19.3 percentage points in the previous year to 19.6 percentage points in the latest figures. The proportion of disabled adults classed as inactive has remained broadly unchanged.