A quarter of adolescents around the world get less than one hour of moderate to vigorous physical activity in a given week, according to a new World Health Organization study released Friday alongside its publication in The Lancet Global Health. Health Policy Watch reports that this amounts to roughly 240 million young people aged 11 to 17 who are not getting the exercise needed to grow into healthy adults.
The report, titled "A generation missing out," draws on 389 population-based surveys covering about 3.2 million adolescents in 140 countries and territories. Participants were asked which physical activities they had done in the previous week and for how long.
Why it matters
Only 14 percent of respondents said they had been active for at least an hour on every day of the week, the level WHO recommends. On average, adolescents reported reaching that hour on just 2.7 days per week.
Physical inactivity is a major risk factor for heart disease, type-2 diabetes and some cancers. WHO officials also stressed that movement supports mental health, healthy growth and the development of habits that can last a lifetime. Adolescence, they noted, is a period when long-term patterns take shape.
"For 15 years, the world has made almost no progress in getting young people moving, and girls are being left furthest behind," WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, according to Health Policy Watch. He argued that the solution is not to ask adolescents to try harder but to build schools, streets and communities where activity is safe, easy and routine.
A persistent gender gap
Girls were less active than boys in nearly every country and in every WHO region. Worldwide, about 28 percent of girls reported no active days in the past week, compared with 22 percent of boys. Only 11 percent of girls said they were active daily, against 17 percent of boys.
Dr Fiona Bull, who leads physical activity promotion at WHO, pointed to several causes at a press briefing, including few visible role models and a shortage of female coaches in formal sports. At the community level, she said, it can come down to activity simply not being expected of girls, or even being seen as culturally inappropriate. Religious and cultural norms, family dynamics and safety concerns can also shape whether girls are introduced to sport or supported to keep it up, she added. Girls showed a stronger preference for dance, which experts described as an opening for policymakers.
Two patterns, divided by income
Dr Leanne Riley, who heads surveillance and monitoring in WHO's noncommunicable disease division, said the data revealed two distinct regional patterns. In many low- and middle-income settings, a large share of adolescents report no active days at all. In most of Europe, Asia and parts of the Americas, by contrast, 90 percent or more reported an hour of activity daily. In parts of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, more than 40 percent reported no active days.
The report offers no single explanation for the stagnation. Activity levels are shaped by where adolescents live, learn and travel, as well as by transport patterns, access to safe public spaces, school environments, cost, social norms and increasingly screen-based lifestyles. WHO experts said the data, covering about 60 percent of adolescents globally, have stayed roughly flat since measurement began in 2010 and was repeated in 2016.
Dr Etienne Krug, director of WHO's department of health determinants, promotion and prevention, said movement is among the most effective ways to prevent stroke, cardiovascular disease and other noncommunicable conditions, while also aiding learning and social connection.
The report calls for coordinated action across education, transport and urban planning. Riley described what progress would look like: communities with connected, safe walking and cycling routes linking homes, schools, shops and friends, supported by public transport that encourages people to walk and cycle. That includes investment in safe routes to school and in parks and recreational facilities.
Sports brands have also said they can play a larger role in encouraging activity, according to Health Policy Watch.
What to watch: whether governments translate the report's recommendations into transport, school and planning policy, and whether the next round of global estimates shows the 15-year plateau beginning to break.
