These Are The Laziest Countries In The World, According To The United Nations

The World Health Organization had hoped to reduce inactivity 10 percent by 2025, but these numbers don't bode well for that goal.

Details Of The Study

The survey of 168 nations ranked the countries by most to least active by measuring the exercise habits of a given percentage of each country’s population and then comparing that percentage with those samples of the other countries involved in the study. The WHO defines enough exercise as at least 75 minutes of vigorous activity or 150 minutes of moderately intense activity per week — or any combination of the two.

The Laziest Countries

Overall, there were only four counties in the world where more than 50 percent of the population did not get enough exercise: Kuwait, Iraq, American Samoa, and Saudi Arabia. So these four countries are effectively the “laziest” in the world. Ultimately the nation with the least amount of physical activity was Kuwait, with 67 percent of its adults not exercising enough.

Other nations towards the bottom of this list were the United States, which ranked 143rd out of 168 countries. A whopping 40 percent of the U.S.’s population doesn’t get enough exercise — meaning approximately 130 million Americans can’t manage to get 2.5 hours of moderate activity per week.

The U.K. also ranked fairly inactive, with only 35.9 percent of their population getting the proper amount. Other more inactive countries included Brazil, with 47 percent, the Philippines with 39.7 percent, Singapore with 36.5 percent, and India with 34 percent of the population not getting enough exercise.