Activity Perception Influenced By Where You Live

How physically active do you think you are? According to research published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, the accuracy of your assessment may be influenced by where you live. Not just the weather, but the country.

Researchers tracked the physical activity levels of 540 Americans, 748 Dutch subjects and 254 from England for 7 days. All subjects were over the age of 18 and asked to rate their physical activity levels on a scale of 1 to 5. They also wore activity trackers.

Dutch and English subjects were slightly more likely to rate toward the middle of the scale, while Americans tended toward the extremes: very active to inactive. In reality, Americans were much less active compared to the Europeans with the percentage of subjects considered inactive nearly twice that of Dutch subjects.

According to fitness tracker data, 60% of subjects from the United States were inactive compared to 42% of the Dutch and 32% of the English. Subjects from all of these countries became less active as they aged.