Over a quarter of adults in city ‘never walk’

ONE in four adults in Birmingham rarely walk anywhere, figures have revealed.

New data showed 26 per cent of people aged 14 and over in the city did not walk at least once a month in 2016-17.

‘Walking’ was defined as continuous movement for at least ten minutes on at least one day.

The figure comes from the annual Active Lives Survey conducted by Sport England, which asked 197,000 adults across the country about their walking habits. It revealed Birmingham was less active than the country as a whole when it comes to walking.

That is despite the situation getting slightly better – when the question was posed in 2015-16, 73 per cent of adults in Birmingham walked at least once a month. That figure has now risen to 74 per cent.

The Chief Medical Officer in the UK recommends that adults should be physically active for 150 minutes a week, in bouts of 10 minutes or more.

Just ten minutes walk can have positive effects on your health, helping to lower your blood pressure, burn calories, and reduce stress.

Across England 78 per cent of adults walk at least once a month, up from 77 per cent in 2015-16.

In Birmingham just 30 per cent of adults said they walked continuously for ten minutes at least five times a week – again lower than the national average of 32 per cent.

Of those in Birmingham who do walk at least once a month, more walk to get from place to place than they do for leisure – including health recreation, training or competition.

The data shows that adults in Blackburn and Darwen in Lancashire were the least active in the country when it comes to walking, with just 67 per cent saying they walked at least once a month.

Canterbury in Kent is the most active area, with 87 per cent doing so at least monthly and 45 per cent walking at least five times a week.