67% of Tenerife residents engage in physical activity; they do so for health reasons and prefer open spaces

Concepción Rivero, the Tenerife Island Council’s Councilor for Sports, presented the Tenerife Sports Habits Survey today, which was conducted by the island council in collaboration with the University of La Laguna. This survey reveals that 67% of Tenerife residents engage in some form of physical activity, compared to the Spanish average of 53.5%. Of these, 42% engage in physical activity for more than 150 minutes per week, which is the minimum amount recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Concepción Rivero, who was accompanied by the island’s director of sports, Laura Castro, and ULL professor Francisco Jiménez, the study’s coordinator, emphasized “the importance of having a rigorous guide that clearly establishes the population’s needs and demands regarding sports in order to shape public policies in the most appropriate way.”

The councilor wanted to highlight “the link revealed by the survey between physical activity and health, since a large part of the population engages in sports with that goal in mind, which reaffirms our commitment to the initiatives we are carrying out through Tenerife Saludable and others we will launch.”

Laura Castro, for her part, noted the preference of Tenerife’s residents for outdoor sports, “which is in line with the Cabildo’s strategy to enhance outdoor sports infrastructure in coordination with the island’s municipal governments in order to be more effective and reach as many people as possible.”

The director also expressed the island government’s concern about the high percentage of people who are overweight—47% of those surveyed—and obese—14.7%— a situation that persists despite people engaging in physical activity; she therefore considered it important to continue promoting the medical prescription of physical activity and programs such as Claim: Activate Your Life, Active Schools, Active Recess, and Master Games. She also mentioned the Island Council’s initiative to promote the DXT Salud virtual platform during the lockdown, which is designed to facilitate physical activity at home under the guidance of professionals and is aimed at the general public as well as specific groups such as pregnant women, people with limited mobility, and cancer patients. The DXT Salud platform has already surpassed 284,000 views with more than a hundred videos online.

The coordinator of this Tenerife Sports Habits Survey, Francisco Jiménez, a professor at the University of La Laguna, broke down some of the study’s most relevant findings, which include—in addition to the previously mentioned data on motivations for engaging in physical activity and the percentage of the population that does so— the fact that 67.6% of the population engages in physical activity or sports on their own, while 14.5% go to private gyms; 8.6% go to other associations or clubs; and 8.7% use public facilities (gyms or municipal facilities).

Overweight population

Francisco Jiménez highlighted other findings from the survey, such as the fact that 61.7% of Tenerife’s population is overweight, although a majority of the population (76.8%) perceives their physical condition and health to be acceptable. For this reason, the study’s coordinator emphasized the importance of developing initiatives that offer the population alternatives for leisure and physical activity to help them lead healthy lives.

The main reasons cited by respondents who do not engage in any type of physical activity are a lack of willpower—which is particularly common among men—and a lack of time, which is cited mainly by women. Among the main motivations for engaging in some form of physical activity, health ranks first for the first time, even ahead of staying in shape, which was the main reason cited by respondents in the previous 2017 study on exercise habits. Relaxation and fun follow as the next main reasons.

Another important fact is that only 9.5% of people who participate in sports do so through a sports federation, a percentage that drops to 6.2% among women. Among non-federated participants, the most common activities are, in this order, walking, working out at the gym, running, swimming, and hiking.

Francisco Jiménez said that “this descriptive study aims to examine in depth the sports habits of the island’s population by municipality, age group, and gender in order to promote physical activity and healthy lifestyle habits among the island’s population. It also seeks to understand family preferences and identify factors that influence attitudes and behaviors related to the presence or absence of physical activity and sports participation, among other issues.”

The study compiles a large amount of relevant data and delves into the needs and demands of the population with the aim of increasing participation in sports. In this regard, it highlights the fact that people want sports facilities to be in good condition and for there to be swimming pools.