Update: Sport England / Savanta ComRes: Survey into Adult Physical Activity Attitudes and Behaviour (April 2020)

Source: http://www.comresglobal.com/polls/sport-england-survey-into-adult-physical-activity-attitudes-and-behaviour/

April 2020

From: Active Partnerships Team - Sport England <ActivePartnerships@sportengland.org>
Sent: 22 April 2020 16:50
Subject: COVID-19 Insight Briefing - 2020 / Week 17

Dear Active Partnership Director,

Please see below for details of wave two of the COVID-19 Insight Briefing, summarising the headline findings from our weekly survey of physical activity attitudes and behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The survey explores the amount and type of activity being undertaken, how activity is changing over time, who people are being active with, and what they’re thinking and feeling about being active.

Carried out by Savanta ComRes over the Easter weekend from 10^th to 14^th April 2020. Data is weighted to be representative of adults in England by age, gender, region, social grade and the estimated households with children under 16.

A full version of all the headlines and tables from previous weeks is available and you can also see the relevant news story on our website.

Please feel free to share these results with your local partners.

References should be cited as - Sport England / Savanta ComRes: Survey into Adult Physical Activity Attitudes and Behaviour (April 2020). All press releases or other publications must be checked with Savanta ComRes before use.

Headlines

Adults are reporting similar levels of physical activity to the previous week.

There is little change in the amount and type of activity that adults are reporting in the last week compared to the previous week.

According to adults, children have been slightly more active than they were the previous week. 18% of children are doing an hour or more of daily physical activity compared with 14% the previous week, and a higher proportion of children (35%) are doing more physical activity than before the outbreak (as reported by adults).

There are still differences in levels of activity between different demographic groups.

Older people, people on low incomes, people living alone and people who are self-isolating because they are at increased risk due to their age or health condition, are all finding it harder than normal to be active during the outbreak. We have also seen a dip in women’s activity levels with fewer women than men achieving 30 mins activity on 5+ days and more women than men doing no activity.

People’s current feelings about physical activity are mostly similar to the previous week, with a few exceptions indicating that physical activity might be slightly less of a focus for people this week. We’ve seen a slight fall in the proportion of people agreeing that it’s more important to be active at the moment and that they have been encouraged to exercise by the Government’s guidance. More people are agreeing that they don’t find exercising on their own enjoyable, and that they feel guilty about wanting to exercise during the outbreak.

Please see the tables below for more detailed results.

Physical activity behaviour

Days done 30 minutes or more physical activity in last week (SIM):

	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	2-4 days	5+ days
Week 1	22%	10%	12%	14%	8%	11%	4%	18%	35%	33%
Week 2	20%	9%	13%	16%	9%	10%	4%	19%	39%	32%
Sig diff	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No

Is this more or less physical activity than usual?

	A lot more	A bit more	Neither more or less	A bit less	A lot less	MORE	LESS
Week 1	10%	21%	28%	17%	24%	31%	41%
Week 2	9%	24%	26%	18%	22%	33%	40%
Sig diff	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No

Types of physical activity, participation in last week

Type	% who did activity – week 1	% who did activity – week 2	Sig diff
Walking	59%	59%	No
Cycling	8%	10%	No
Running or jogging	18%	16%	No
Home activity / fitness – ONLINE	23%	21%	No
Home activity / fitness – OFFLINE	24%	22%	No
Informal play or games at home	14%	15%	No
Other	5%	6%	No
ANY HOME-BASED ACTIVITY	44%	45%	No

Physical activity attitudes

Agreement with COM-B statements

Statement	% Strongly Agree / Agree		Sig diff
Statement	Week 1	Week 2
I feel that I have the ability to be physically active	68%	66%	No
I feel that I have the opportunity to be physically active	65%	65%	No
I find exercise enjoyable and satisfying	61%	61%	No
It is important to me to exercise regularly	70%	69%	No
I feel guilty when I don’t exercise	56%	51%	Yes

Other current feelings about physical activity and the coronavirus

Statement	Agree – week 2	Agree – week 1	Sig diff
Since the outbreak I have found new ways to be active	49%	51%	No
I have more time now to be physically active	65%	64%	No
I have been encouraged to exercise by the Government’s guidance	53%	48%	Yes
I do not find exercising on my own enjoyable	40%	43%	Yes
I miss the types of physical activity I was able to do before the outbreak	63%	62%	No
I worry about leaving my home to exercise or be active	60%	60%	No
I feel guilty about wanting to exercise during the outbreak	27%	31%	Yes
I feel guilty about not exercising more during the outbreak	50%	48%	No
I exercise to help manage my physical health during the outbreak	69%	70%	No
I exercise to help manage my mental health during the outbreak	65%	64%	No
The current situation has not impacted my current exercise regime	42%	43%	No

Do people feel it is more or less important to be active at the moment?

	Much more important	Somewhat more important	No more or less important	Somewhat less important	Much less important	Don’t know	MORE	LESS
Week 1	22%	40%	29%	3%	1%	3%	62%	5%
Week 2	21%	37%	32%	3%	2%	4%	59%	5%
Sig diff	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	No

How else has coronavirus changed feelings about physical activity? (Open response)

Top reasons (>5%) given from 585 responses:

	Week 1	Week 2	Sig diff
Increased awareness of need to exercise / desire to do more	52%	56%	No
Scared or worried to go out	16%	14%	No
Important for improving mental health	10%	9%	No
Less motivation to do exercise / exercising less	5%	7%	Yes
Can’t go out / stuck at home	7%	6%	No

Children’s physical activity levels

Average daily time spent doing physical activity (average per child in household)

	Week 1	Week 2	Sig diff
Nothing	12%	8%	Yes
Some, but less than half an hour	36%	35%	No
Between half an hour and an hour	38%	38%	No
More than an hour	14%	18%	Yes

SOME	88%	92%	Yes

Is this more or less than usual?

	A lot more	A bit more	Neither more or less	A bit less	A lot less	MORE	LESS
Week 1	7%	23%	31%	20%	18%	30%	38%
Week 2	8%	27%	29%	17%	18%	35%	35%
Sig diff	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY BY DEMOGRAPHIC

	% doing 30 mins on 5+ days – week 1	% doing 30 mins on 5+ days – week 2	Sig diff
ALL	33%	32%	No
Male	32%	35%	No
Female	35%	29%	Yes
16-34	34%	31%	No
35-54	34%	31%	No
55+	32%	33%	No
ABC1	35%	35%	No
C2DE	32%	29%	No
Children in house	36%	30%	Yes
No children in house	31%	33%	No
Other caring responsibilities at home	32%	32%
Longstanding condition or illness	26%	25%	No
No longstanding condition or illness	36%	35%	No
NE	38%	34%
NW	37%	34%
Y+H	40%	30%
WM	34%	35%
EM	28%	32%
E	35%	33%
L	26%	31%
SE	33%	33%
SW	32%	29%
Urban	32%	32%
Rural	39%	33%

* Fewer than 30 responses

For more information

You can access the full tables for the survey.

If you have questions regarding the new survey, please get in touch via the Knowledge Hub Insight Forum.

Watch out for additional releases with more detailed analysis on a range of themes over the coming weeks.

Building the insight picture

As with most aspects of our work and lives, things are changing rapidly. Identifying opportunities to collaborate with partners to build a more detailed picture of the issues affecting the nation’s physical activity is paramount. Therefore, if you have or are aware of emerging insight that you think would be useful, we would be grateful for any details to be shared with us via insight@sportengland.org or join the discussion on the ‘understanding covid-19 locally’ forum.

Many thanks

Active Partnerships Team

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Update: Sport England / Savanta ComRes: Survey into Adult Physical Activity Attitudes and Behaviour (April 2020)

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