Helsinki is the third fittest city in the world: new study (2024)

However, for city dwellers and their sedentary lifestyle, staying active is not always an easy task. According to the WHO more than a quarter of the world's adult population is not active enough. Youth could spend ours playing video games or browsing sites for pikakasinot. Going for a run or training in the gym could often take the backseat.

A recent study has analysed more than 60 cities across the globe to reveal the world's most active cities. The study is based on a wide range of fitness and health-oriented metrics such as the level of insufficient physical activity, the percentage of gym members, the percentage of bicycle usage and additional environmental metrics.

Global Fitness: How Do The World's Cities Rank?

The study was commissioned by Reebok, which often partners with fitness experts to comment on the state of fitness and share their tips on the best way to stay active and the best routines to improve mental health and relationship with the body.

According to the results, globally, 28% of adults aged 18 and over were insufficiently active in 2016. According to the WHO definition, this means they did not practise "at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity, or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity physical activity per week".

High-income countries are particularly affected by this trend due to the prevalence of desk jobs, but exercising does not have to mean spending large chunks of time in the gym.

Juggy Sidhu, Nutrition & Health expert explains, "Not liking exercise should not define your activity levels. We know that activity has the power to add years to your life and quality to those years, so being more active really ought to be a non-negotiable part of your routine. This doesn't mean sweating it out in the gym for hours on end!”

However, some cities benefit from a more suitable environment for fitness than others, thanks to good air quality, a high number of green spaces and affordable gyms.

Take a look at the world's twenty fittest cities below:

Amsterdam has been crowned the world's fittest city. The city boasts the highest number of individuals who cycle to work, at nearly 46%, as well as a large number of gym fanatics, nearly 17.5% of the population.

People living in Oslo have the most access to green space, with 68% of the city available for enjoying nature. Tokyo has the smallest amount of green space available, at only 7.5%.

Those living in Berlin, Germany have the highest level of insufficient physical activity, with a score of 42.2. At the opposite end of the scale, Helsinki which sits in third place has the most active people with a level of just 16.6 for insufficient activity.

Zurich and Geneva share the lowest obesity rates in the top 20 with Switzerland having a 19.5% country-wide obesity rate. On the other end of the scale, the Canadian cities of Montreal and Toronto have obesity rates of 29.4%, despite Montreal having the cheapest gym membership, €23 a month.

The Countries With The Most Gym-Goers

In some parts of the world fitness is an essential part of the country's culture. For some countries it is due to having a popular national sport, whereas for others, such as America, fitness-mania is tied to the goal of achieving a fit body.

Below table shows countries with the largest population of gym-goers:

Data source: Run Repeat

Norway and Sweden are both home to the biggest gym fanatics in the world, with 22% of their population heading to the gym regularly, closely followed by the United States (21.20%).

The US, Germany and the UK top the ranking for the highest number of gym members with 64.10 million, 11.66 million and 10.39 million members respectively. Those countries also recorded the highest revenues of the gym industry in 2019 according to RunRepeat, with the US gym industry reaching a revenue of 35.03 billion dollars in 2019 compared with approximately 6.17 billion dollars for the German and British industries.

HT

Sources, Reebock and Run Repeat