Food & Health Alliance

Combining data from three Scottish Health Surveys (1995, 1998 and 2003) and ten Health Education Population Surveys (spanning 1996 to 2006), it shows a modest rise in the proportion of men and women doing enough physical activity for their health since the mid-1990s. The report also describes inequalities in compliance with the recommendations by gender, age and deprivation. It concludes with recommendations for future survey-based monitoring of physical activity in Scotland.

The results provide strong evidence of a small increase in the proportion of women (aged 16–64) meeting the current recommendations for physical activity from 1995 to 2006. This finding is based upon the triangulated data from both surveys, giving increased confidence that it reflects a real population trend. There was no significant change in the proportion of men (aged 16–64) meeting the recommendations over the same time period. However, there is some evidence of an increase from 1995/1996 to 2003, supported by the SHeS with weaker evidence from the HEPS.

Information about more recent trends is currently available only from the HEPS. Results from the 2004, 2005 and 2006 surveys suggest that there has been no change in male compliance with the recommendations for physical activity since the 2003 SHeS. The corresponding results for women also suggest broad stability. These findings must be treated with some caution as they are based upon a single source of evidence that is better suited to detecting trends over longer periods of time. Nonetheless, they provide useful preliminary evidence that there has been no reduction in compliance with the current physical activity recommendations since the launch of Let’s Make Scotland More Active in 2003. It is not possible to draw final conclusions on early progress towards the national target until autumn 2009, when new data from the 2008 SHeS will become available.

This study confirms previous findings that compliance with the current recommendations for physical activity is patterned by gender, age and deprivation. More importantly, these patterns have not altered significantly from 1995 to 2006, demonstrating the persistence of health inequalities in physical activity.