People engaging in sport or exercise weekly

Weekly participation in sport or exercise is one of the clearest signals of how active a population really is. Across Europe and worldwide the numbers show both encouraging levels of engagement and stubborn gaps that follow social, economic and geographic lines. The headline picture is simple but revealing: a substantial share of adults move regularly each week, yet almost as many move rarely or not at all, and progress over time is uneven.

Europe as a case study of weekly sport engagement

The most detailed recent snapshot for a large region comes from the European Union. The 2022 Special Eurobarometer on sport and physical activity reports that 38 percent of respondents in EU member states exercise or play sport at least once a week. At the same time 45 percent say they never exercise or play sport, while 6 percent do so five times a week or more.

This means that in Europe, weekly sport or exercise is common but far from universal. The population is essentially split into three groups: a regularly active minority, a somewhat active group that exercises less than once a week, and a very large inactive group that does none at all. The position of these groups is important because even a small shift from “never” to “once a week” represents a meaningful improvement for public health.

Inside Europe: age, country and social divides

The same Eurobarometer shows a clear age gradient. Respondents aged 15 to 24 are the most likely to exercise or play sport with some regularity, with 54 percent doing so. This share falls to 42 percent among 25 to 39 year olds, 32 percent among 40 to 54 year olds and 21 percent among those aged 55 and over. Weekly sport participation in Europe therefore declines steadily with age, reflecting changing health status, family responsibilities, work patterns and the way sport systems are organized around youth and early adulthood.

Country comparisons reveal even sharper contrasts. A detailed analysis of the 2022 survey notes that respondents in Finland are the most likely to exercise or play sport at least once a week, with 71 percent doing so. Luxembourg follows with 63 percent, the Netherlands with 60 percent, and Denmark and Sweden with 59 percent each. At the other end of the spectrum, over half of respondents in eight EU countries say they never exercise or play sport, with the highest levels reported in Portugal at 73 percent, Greece at 68 percent and Poland at 65 percent.

These figures show that weekly engagement in sport or exercise within the same political and economic bloc ranges from a strong majority to a small minority. A person living in Finland or the Netherlands is statistically much more likely to be active every week than someone in Portugal or Greece. The geography of weekly sport in Europe mirrors broader social patterns, including climate, urban design, active transport habits and long standing sport cultures.

The survey findings also underline social inequalities. Engagement in sport and physical activity is less prevalent among people with lower levels of education and among those with financial difficulties. (Sport e Salute S.p.A.) When time, money and access to facilities are limited, weekly sport is often one of the first activities to disappear. In statistical terms this means that weekly exercise is not just a health behavior, but also an indicator of social advantage.

The global backdrop: inactivity, not just sport

Globally, the most consistent data describe whether adults reach basic physical activity guidelines rather than whether they play sport specifically once a week. The World Health Organization defines physically inactive adults as those who do not meet the recommendation of at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity, 75 minutes of vigorous activity, or an equivalent combination each week.

A recent WHO fact sheet summarizing a pooled analysis of 163 countries reports that 31 percent of the world’s adult population, about 1.8 billion people, are physically inactive according to these criteria. This represents an increase of 5 percentage points between 2010 and 2022. In other words, almost one in three adults worldwide do not reach a level of weekly movement that is considered sufficient for health, and the situation has worsened rather than improved over the past decade.

The same source highlights large demographic disparities. Women are less active than men by an average of 5 percentage points, and inactivity rises with age in both sexes. Among adolescents aged 11 to 17 years, 80 percent do not meet recommended levels of physical activity, with adolescent girls less active than boys. These global patterns echo the European findings: weekly movement is deeply shaped by gender and age.

Trends over time: pockets of progress, overall stagnation

The story of change is mixed. In the European Union, earlier Eurobarometer data from 2017 reported that two in five Europeans, 40 percent, exercised or played sport at least once a week, while 46 percent never did so. The 2022 survey, with 38 percent exercising weekly and 45 percent never exercising, suggests that weekly sport participation has remained broadly stable over recent years, with only small fluctuations.

In contrast, there are examples of national level improvement. A recent report from Sport England finds that in England nearly two thirds of adults now meet the National Health Service recommendation of at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity per week. This corresponds to 2.4 million more active individuals compared with 2016. Older adults have driven much of this rise, with 1.9 million more active people aged 55 to 74 and about 600 000 more people over 75 who are active than in 2016. This indicates that targeted national policies and investments can shift weekly activity levels upwards, even in older age groups.

At the same time the global trend in the pooled WHO and academic analysis points in the opposite direction. The prevalence of lower than adequate exercise increased from about 23.4 percent in 2000 to 31.3 percent in 2022, leaving the world off track to meet the agreed target of a 15 percent relative reduction in physical inactivity between 2010 and 2030. Weekly exercise is therefore moving in different directions depending on context: substantial progress in some countries, stagnation or regression in others.

Why weekly sport is so unevenly distributed

Looking across these datasets, several consistent themes emerge. First, access to safe and attractive places to be active matters. Studies summarizing European data regularly note that sport and physical activity are more common where parks, walking and cycling infrastructure, and recreational facilities are easily available. The WHO Global Action Plan on Physical Activity stresses the need for safer roads for walking and cycling and designated urban spaces for active recreation where people live, work and study. Weekly exercise often depends on whether these conditions exist in a person’s immediate environment.

Second, economic resources and education shape both opportunity and motivation. The Eurobarometer based reports highlight that engagement in sport and physical activity is less prevalent among people with lower educational attainment and financial difficulties. Sport England data similarly show that people living in more deprived areas and people from many ethnic minority backgrounds are less likely to be active, even as overall participation rises. Weekly sport in these groups is constrained by costs, limited facility provision and competing pressures such as shift work or caring responsibilities.

Third, inclusion in movement spaces is not evenly shared. Research on inclusive sport and physical activity, for example work framed as “Inclusion in Motion”, emphasizes that participation in play, physical education, outdoor life and organized sports can promote resilience and well being, but that children and adults with disabilities or other marginalized identities often face physical, social and institutional barriers. When facilities, clubs and programs are not designed with diverse participants in mind, weekly engagement drops among those who would benefit most.

From statistics to priorities: equity in movement as a global goal

The numerical picture therefore points toward a central conclusion. Weekly engagement in sport or exercise is not only about personal choice or motivation. It is the outcome of policy decisions about transport, urban planning, education, health and social protection that have been made over many years. That is why global and regional strategies now frame physical activity as a shared development goal.

The WHO Global Action Plan on Physical Activity 2018 to 2030 calls for “more active people for a healthier world” and sets explicit targets for a 10 percent relative reduction in physical inactivity by 2025 and 15 percent by 2030, from a 2010 baseline. Meeting these goals will require not just persuading individuals to exercise weekly, but also redesigning environments so that weekly movement is safe, affordable and socially supported, particularly for groups who currently have the least access.

In Europe the statistic that 38 percent of citizens exercise or play sport at least once a week sits alongside the reality that 45 percent never do so at all. Globally, roughly one in three adults is not active enough for health. The distance between these groups is where policy, investment and community action now have to focus. Expanding equitable access to movement opportunities is less about creating a small elite of very active people and more about shifting millions from “never” toward at least “once a week”, and from insufficient activity toward the basic weekly threshold that protects health. The data show that this is possible, but only where weekly exercise is treated as a matter of social justice as much as personal habit.