One in four adolescents aged 11 to 17 say they had no active days in the previous week, according to new global estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO counts an active day as at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity. Extrapolated, the findings amount to some 240 million young people, the UN health agency said.
The study was published in The Lancet Global Health. It draws on hundreds of population-based surveys from 140 countries and territories, covering more than 3.2 million teens. On average, the adolescents said they were active 2.7 days a week. Only 14 percent said they were active on all seven days.
Girls are far less active than boys in almost every country and region, the WHO found. Some 28 percent of girls reported no active days, compared with 22 percent of boys. Only 11 percent of girls said they were active every day, against 17 percent of boys.
Results vary widely between countries. In Namibia, Nepal and the Philippines, 40 percent of adolescents reported no active days. In Bangladesh and Serbia, more than 30 percent of young people said they were active every day.
The WHO warned that physical inactivity is a major risk factor for heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers. It said helping young people build active habits early is critical to protecting their health. The agency added that teen activity levels have stayed "virtually unchanged" over the past 15 years.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the world has made almost no progress in 15 years in getting young people moving. He said girls are being left furthest behind. "The answer is not to tell adolescents to try harder. It is to build schools, streets and communities where moving, playing and being active is safe, easy and normal," Tedros said.
According to the WHO, the environment young people live in shapes how active they are. That includes how they travel, whether they have safe spaces and whether they can walk or cycle safely. Schools, social norms and lifestyles increasingly centred on screens also play a part. The agency urged countries to adopt policies that make physical activity an easy, safe and accessible part of everyday life.