A time to party, but not yet to dance

And we still see gaps in activity levels based on:

• Gender – 65.6% of men are active versus 60.8% of women
• Wealth – 72.6% of the richest are active compared to 52.7% of the poorest
• Ethnicity – 67% of “White Others” are active versus 55% of those who identify as “Other Ethnic Group”.
• Age – The activity level of 16-34 year olds is decreasing while it is increasing for older adults
• Regardless of whether a person has a disability or long-term health condition, 68.1% of those who don’t are active, compared to 47.5% of those who do.

These results show that while sport and physical activity are easy and accessible for many people, they are not for millions – these groups are our focus for years to come and working together as a movement of thousands of organizations we have the opportunity to making an impact Sport simple, accessible and enjoyable for all.

how we move

Looking beyond activity levels, there are also some interesting changes in the way people choose to get active.

While compared to the previous year (after consecutive years of growth) the number of people walking for leisure has decreased, other types of activities have increased significantly. The number of people taking part in team sports and swimming has increased significantly in the last 12 months, reflecting the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions and how badly they have impacted participation rates during the pandemic.

While team sport levels are now back to pre-pandemic levels, swimming levels (3.8 million people who have swum at least twice in the last 28 days) are still below pre-coronavirus restrictions level (4.2 million) and even further behind the 4.9 million from the first year of Active Lives.

We have also seen that levels of active travel (e.g. walking or cycling to work or shopping) have recovered significantly after a sharp drop during the pandemic – although not returning to pre-pandemic levels, possibly reflecting the increase in days many people are working from home.

What next?

All of these numbers, both positive and negative, show why our “Uniting the Movement” strategy is so important.

We know our staff didn’t just wave a magic wand and suddenly the public decided to get back out there and take action. We know that in reality it was the sports and exercise sector that made this recovery possible.

This is what the first year of Uniting the Movement aimed to do – to respond to the challenges of the time, to change the way we work, to plan our strategy for the years to come and to move from our previous work to alignment with our new goals. But the biggest change is doing this together, building a real movement and working towards the same goals together.

Today’s findings show that the way we’ve all responded to the pandemic has helped overall activity levels recover quickly – but now it’s time to redouble our work to address the inequalities, that lie under these headlines.