A team of scientists from Stanford University (USA) has carried out a curious study on human movement. Researchers have collected physical activity data (steps counted by mobile phone) from more than 700,000 smartphone users around the world in 111 countries over a period of 95 days to present the world map of physical activity for each country, revealing which countries are the most or least lazy on the planet and helping to measure the level of obesity (what they call ‘activity inequality’). The findings have been published in the journal Nature.
The daily step count recorded by the smartphone’s accelerometer was coupled with basic information about the age, gender, height and weight of the study subjects.
The researchers found that in low-obesity countries, people tend to walk about the same number of steps each day. In other countries, however, where there were larger gaps between those who walked a lot and those who walked very little, obesity was significantly a problem.
This correlation persisted even when the average level of steps was the same in all countries, demonstrating that while national averages for physical activity may seem like a reasonable way to compare the fitness level of countries, they are not reliable to measure the prevalence of obesity.
The 5 countries with the highest levels of inequality of activity were: Saudi Arabia, Australia, Canada, Egypt and the United States.
“When activity inequality is higher, women’s activity is reduced much more dramatically than men’s activity, and thus negative connections to obesity can affect women much more, ” confirms Jure Leskovec, co-author. from work.
Average steps per day
The global average of steps was determined in 5,000 daily steps. Precisely Spain, with 5,936 steps a day on average, is placed in fifth place for this figure. Those who walk the most on the planet are undoubtedly the inhabitants of Hong Kong (China), with an average of 6,880 daily steps. In contrast, Indonesians are the laziest with 3,513 steps a day on average.
The 25 most vague countries
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Indonesia
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Saudi Arabia
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Malaysia
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Philippines
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South Africa
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Qatar
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Brazil
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India
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Egitpo
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Greece
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United Arab Emirates
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New Zealand
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Mexico
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Portugal
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Romania
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Thailand
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USA
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Canada
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Australia
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Belgium
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Taiwan
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Israel
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Turkey
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Holland
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France
The 10 most active countries
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China
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Ukraine
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Japan
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Russia
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Spain
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Sweden
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South Korea
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Singapore
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Swiss
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Czech Republic
The study, logically, has limitations . For example, the researchers restricted their study to iPhones -which reduces the statistical validity of the sample-; Another piece of information: finally, of the 111 countries, they selected around 50, because they were the ones that had information on at least 1,000 people. And finally, physical activity is not just about walking: swimming, cycling or dancing are outside the study data.
Referencia: Large-scale physical activity data reveal worldwide activity inequality. Tim Althoff, Rok Sosič, Jennifer L. Hicks, Abby C. King, Scott L. Delp & Jure Leskovec. Nature. doi:10.1038/nature23018
