Physical activity: adults achieving the recommended level by age and gender
The 2008 Scottish Health Survey found that 45% of men and 33% of women aged 16 years and over were achieving the recommended 30 minutes or more of at least moderate activity on five or more days per week. Chart 1 shows that men are more likely to meet the recommendations than women, regardless of age. The gender gap is particularly pronounced among younger adults (a difference of 16% points among 16-24 year-olds and 21% points among 25-34 year-olds).
Men and women in younger age groups are more likely to meet the recommendations than older adults. For men, this peaked at age 25-34, 63% of whom met the recommendations, before steadily declining to 13% among those aged 75+. For women, similar proportions of 16-44 year-olds met the recommendations (42-43%) declining to just 4% in those aged 75+.
These figures suggest that significant progress will need to be made, especially amongst women, in terms of increasing physical activity levels if the national adult physical activity target is to be achieved. The target is for 50% of adults aged over 16 to be meeting the minimum of physical activity for adults by 2022.
Please note: If you require the most up-to-date data available, please check the data sources directly as new data may have been published since these data pages were last updated. Although we endeavour to ensure that the data pages are kept up-to-date, there may be a time lag between new data being published and the relevant ScotPHO web pages being updated.
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