One in four adolescents reports no active days in a week

A World Health Organization-led analysis of surveys covering more than 3.2 million adolescents in 140 countries and territories found that one in four reported no physically active days in the previous week. The estimates also show little change in activity levels over about 15 years and a persistent gap between girls and boys. The study, published in The Lancet Global Health, examined adolescents aged 11 to 17. It defined an active day as one on which a young person reported at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. The WHO estimates that about 240 million adolescents worldwide had no active days during the week surveyed. Across the study, adolescents reported an average of 2.7 active days a week. Fourteen percent said they were active on all seven days. The figures are based on self-reported survey responses, rather than direct measurement of activity. The gender gap appeared in both the least and most active groups. Twenty-eight percent of girls reported no active days, compared with 22 percent of boys. Eleven percent of girls reported activity every day, against 17 percent of boys. The analysis found that activity levels had remained virtually...