Sport and Physical Activity: State of the Nation

Executive Summary

This report presents data on levels of physical activity in Scotland. It covers six key indicators (five for children) over three life stages (children, adults and older adults) and includes a section on how Scotland compares internationally. It is accompanied by a set of excel tables. The report and tables are intended to sit alongside the Physical Activity For Health: Scotland’s National Framework, published September 2024, to provide an understanding of sport and physical activity levels in Scotland over the decade 2014 to 2024 leading up to publication of the new Framework.

The data is from the Scottish Health Survey (SHeS) and the Scottish Household Survey (SHS). Together, these surveys provide national estimates of adherence to the Chief Medical Officer’s (CMO) guidelines for moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) levels and muscle-strengthening^[1], low activity levels, sport and walking participation, and sedentary behaviour for children, adults and older adults and enables analysis of trends around inequalities including sex, age, deprivation and disability.

Key findings

Amongst children and young people, the proportion who reported levels of physical activity that met the CMO guidelines for MVPA have remained relatively stable since 2019 but have declined since peaks in 2014 and 2016. Reported time spent sedentary and levels of low activity have increased.

For adults, adherence to the CMO MVPA guidelines has remained stable, while reported sedentary time has risen. Sports participation has decreased compared to the last few years and returned to similar levels observed in 2014 and 2016. Recreational walking participation has also decreased compared to 2019 but has, overall, seen a steady increase since 2014.

Older adults have reported being more physically active than in the past with an increase in the proportion who reported meeting the CMO MVPA guidelines, driven by an increase in adherence by those in the oldest age group (age 75+ years). This group has also reduced their levels of very low activity and more are participating in recreational walking. Sports participation has, however, declined from a peak observed in 2019. There has been an increase in adherence to muscle-strengthening guidelines in all older adults.

Many inequalities remain with activity generally greater for males compared to females, younger versus older age groups, those from least deprived compared to most deprived areas and those without disabilities compared to those with them.

There are certain groups of particular concern including girls age 13-15 who have markedly lower activity levels than other age and sex groups. Females age 75+ are also a group of concern. Although adherence to CMO guidelines has increased in this latter group, it has also done so for males ensuring the inequality gap remains.

For those from the most deprived areas, there has been a decrease in participation in recreational walking. In contrast this has remained stable in the least deprived areas, leading to a widening of the inequality gap.

There are some notable exceptions to the general inequalities picture. Walking participation does not differ in children by disability or deprivation, or in adults by age

The youngest female adult age group (16-24) has increased their adherence to the CMO guidelines whilst for males there has been a decrease such that in 2024 there was no inequality gap by sex in this age group.

Disabled people have increased their participation in sport whilst there has been a small decline for non-disabled such that the inequality gap has reduced.

In general, activity levels and trends for both adults and children in Scotland are broadly comparable with those in many other European nations.