The video begins with a fast-tempo instrumental track. The Sport England logo is in the top-right corner. The title ‘Active Lives Adults Survey 2023-24 Explained’ fades in on white background before sliding out to the right, as a man slides in from the left.
As he begins speaking, a caption with his name and job title – ‘Nick Pontefract, Chief Strategy Officer’ – appears across his lower third.
Nick says: “This year’s headline picture for our Active Lives Adults survey is better than ever.
“The huge negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on sport and physical activity has been almost completely reversed, with activity levels significantly higher – and inactivity levels significantly lower – than when the survey began and when we launched our strategy, Uniting the Movement, back in 2020.”
As he says these words, a line graph titled ‘Levels of activity’ appears alongside him. The graph’s legend is ‘Average of 150+ minutes a week’. The x-axis range is 2015-16 to 2023-24, while the y-axis range is 20% to 70%.
Two horizontal lines are plotted, showing the percentage of active people increasing from 62.1% to 63.7% across the time period (an arrow pointing upwards indicates +1.6%), and the percentage of inactive people decreasing from 25.6% to 25% (an arrow pointing downwards indicates -0.5%). A column also appears in the middle of the graph indicating the timeframe of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Nick continues: “Since we started the survey, nearly 2.4m more adults are regularly active, and nearly half a million fewer adults are inactive.”
As he says these words, the graph is replaced by a pie chart titled ‘Levels of activity’. The chart’s legend is ‘Average of 150+ minutes a week’. It features three segments: Active (63.7%), Inactive (25.1%) and Fairly Active (11.2%).
An arrow pointing upwards beside ‘Active’ indicates an increase of +2.4m as this segment comes out of the chart by way of being highlighted; the same then happens for ‘Inactive’ (a down arrow indicating a decrease of -0.5m).
The words ‘hard work’, ‘dedication’ and ‘collaboration’ appear in sequence to replace the chart beside Nick as he says: “This is down to the hard work, dedication and collaboration seen across an entire sector.”
Nick then slides out, to be replaced by the words ‘Uniting the Movement’, which are surrounded by colourful moving circles.
Nick’s voice continues: “Never before have so many organisations worked towards the same vision, transforming lives and communities through sport and physical activity.”
Nick slides back into the centre of the screen.
He says: “However, there are still some areas where the picture is more mixed. For too many people, the barriers to getting active are still too high. If you are less affluent, or live in a less affluent place, you are much less likely to be active.”
As he’s saying these words, Nick slides to the left as another bar chart appears next to him, titled ‘Levels of activity: deprivation of place’ and with the legend ‘Average of 150+ minutes a week’.
The three bars are ‘Least deprived’ (with a value of 68.9% and an icon of three money bags), ‘Mid deprived’ (64.7% and two money bags) and ‘Most deprived’ (55.5% and one money bag).
Nick continues: “The same is true if you have a disability or long-term health condition and women’s activity levels are still lower than men’s.”
During this sentence, a bar chart appears indicating that 48.5% of people with a long-term condition or disability do an average of 150+ minutes of activity a week, as opposed to 68.9% without. Then a similar bar chart shows 61.4% for female and 66.3% for male.
Nick continues: “Adults with two or more characteristics of inequality are the least likely to be active, with only 43.7% meeting the Chief Medical Officers’ guidelines – compared to 61.9% of those with one characteristic and 74.3% with no characteristics of inequality.”
Another similar bar chart, titled ‘Levels of activity: inequalities’ and again highlighting an average of 150+ minutes a week, is shown. The three bars show the values for characteristics of inequality: 0 (74.3%), 1 (61.9%) and 2+ (43.7%), with a purple highlight line running around each bar as Nick says the percentages.
Nick continues: “Inequalities are, however, narrowing. This is why our work is disproportionately focused on these groups, to provide more support and more investment targeted towards those that haven’t been well served in the past.”
As he says these words, a line graph similar to the first one appears alongside him, showing levels of activity. The x-axis range is 2016-17 to 2023-24, while the y-axis range is 40% to 75%.
Two horizontal lines are plotted, showing the percentage of people with 2+ characteristics of inequality increasing from 41.2% to 43.7% across the time period, and the percentage of people with 0 characteristics decreasing from 75% to 74.3%. The words ‘3.2% reduction’ appear in the middle, alongside a double-ended arrow showing that the difference is still 30.6%.
Nick continues: “But there is still much to be positive about. There has been huge growth in activity levels for older adults, helping support people to live healthier and happier lives for longer.”
A line chart shows activity levels among those aged 55-74 has increased from 57% in 2015-16 to 63.3% in 2023-24, while for those aged 75+ it is 33.4% to 42.8%.
Nick says: “There has also been significant growth in gym and fitness activities and the stabilisation of crucial activities like swimming and team sport either at or above their pre-pandemic levels.”
A line chart shows an increase in people doing fitness activities, from 13.2m in 2016-17 to 14.2m in 2023-24, albeit with a large dip during the pandemic period.
Another line chart shows the continued post-pandemic recovery of swimming and team sports levels, with the former rising to 4.2m in 2023-24 (4.9m in 2015-16) and the latter rising to 3.4m in 2023-24 (3.5m in 2015-16).
Nick concludes: “As ever, our full report can provide more headline information and you can also access the detailed data tables, or visit the Active Lives Online tool on our website.”
As he says these words, the front cover of the Active Lives Adult Survey Report is shown with a page-flip transition.
The video ends with the Sport England logo, underneath the website address sportengland.org/activelives
