A new report from the World Health Organization (WHO), produced in collaboration with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and with funding from the European Union, highlights the impact that increasing physical activity levels would have on the health of the population and the economy in the continent. The prevalence of insufficient physical activity remains high in the EU. More than one in three adults do not meet the WHO physical activity guidelines, and 45 percent report that they never exercise or play sports. The report, titled “Step up! Tackling the burden of insufficient physical activity in Europe,” reminds us that bringing physical activity to the recommended levels could prevent thousands of premature deaths in the EU and save billions in healthcare spending.
In 2020, WHO launched new physical activity guidelines, recommending that adults should do at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous-intensity physical activity. The new report shows that if everyone in the EU met these levels of physical activity, more than 10,000 premature deaths (people aged 30 to 70 years) could be prevented each year. Increasing physical activity to the minimum recommended levels would prevent 11.5 million new cases of non-communicable diseases by 2050, including 3.8 million cases of cardiovascular diseases, 3.5 million cases of depression, nearly 1 million cases of type 2 diabetes and over 400,000 cases of different cancers. Meeting the target of 300 minutes of physical activity per week would prevent a further 16 million cases of non-communicable diseases.
In addition to its benefits for health, increasing physical activity levels in the EU would return €1.7 in economic benefits for every €1 invested, based on OECD’s modeling study. If the EU countries tackled physical inactivity in the whole population, they would save 0.6 percent of their healthcare budget on average.
Germany, Italy and France emerged as the EU countries with the highest burden of insufficient physical activity on health care expenditure. The WHO/OECD report estimates that these three countries will spend, on average, €2 billion in purchasing power parities (PPP), €1.3 billion PPP and €1 billion PPP, respectively, on treating diseases linked to insufficient physical activity each year between 2022 and 2050.
Among the other highlights, the report shows that less than one in five boys and one in ten girls in the EU meet the WHO-recommended level of physical activity for adolescents. Women and older people are less likely to do regular sports or exercise, and so are people from lower socio-economic groups: 24 percent of people who consider themselves working class exercise at least once a week versus 51 percent of people who consider themselves upper class.
Photo: Adrian Swancar on Unsplash
