The urban environment is a very important factor influencing physical activity

The urban built environment and daily transport are among the most important barriers or promoters of daily physical activity. Possible traffic accidents can be a powerful reason for parents to not allow children to walk or cycle to school or play outdoors, especially in urban settings. In the UK, children from lower social classes are five times more likely to be killed on the road than those from higher classes. The underlying reason is that poorer children are more likely to live in urban areas with poor road safety and high-speed traffic (Cavill et al., 2006). Prevention strategies should focus on safe urban environments, to enable citizens to gain the positive effects of physical active life (Cavill et al., 2006). See table 1.

Table 1: Promoters and barriers of physical activity in urban areas (Cavill et al., 2006)

Especially the transport sector can strongly influence opportunities to be physically active, both by facilitating walking and cycling and by enabling people to get to places to be active (Cavill et al., 2006).

Socioeconomic conditions affect physical activity

Socioeconomic circumstances can affect physical activity in several ways. Poorer people have less free time, poorer access to leisure facilities or living environments that do not support physical activity (Cavill et al., 2006).

Workplace conditions influence physical activity

Workplace conditions influence the amount of physical activity people have during work. Adults spend a great part of their waking time per day at the workplace, but perform in general very little physical activity during this time. The proportion of people who declared that they perform a lot of physical activity at work varies from 10% in Malta and Italy to 27% in Poland, the Netherlands and Lithuania (EC, 2007c). See People with a lot of physical activity at work by country in the EU-27. However, the workplace is reported to have a great potential to increase daily physical activity, if workplace conditions be modified to be more supportive (Cavill et al., 2006).

Personal factors influence physical activity

Although they are less influential than environmental factors, personal and psychological factors play are role in a physical active life as well. See table 2 (Cavill et al., 2006).

Table 2: Promoters and barriers of physical activity from personal and psychological factors