Draft 17.6.15
Barriers & Facilitators to Physical Activity in the Wakefield District
Contents:
· Background
· Summary Findings
o Awareness
o Key Barriers
o Facilitators
o Benefits
· Inactive People
o Barriers, Facilitators & Benefits
o Awareness
o Intention to Change
· Active People
o Barriers, Facilitators & Benefits
o Awareness
o Intention to Change
· Age Profiles
· Gender Profiles
· Deprivation Profiles
· Ethnicity Profiles
Background
There is strong scientific evidence that being physically active can help you lead a healthier and even happier life. People who do regular activity have a lower risk of many chronic diseases, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke and some cancers. Research also shows that physical activity can also boost self-esteem, mood, sleep quality and energy, as well as reducing your risk of stress, depression and dementia. People that are active also tend to adopt other healthy behaviours such as a balanced diet, consuming lower levels of alcohol or not smoking. The estimated costs of physical inactivity in England are £8.2 billion annually.
Physical activity is any body movement that works your muscles and uses more energy than you use when resting such as walking, cycling, running, gardening, outdoor play, dancing, and yoga. Children under 5 should do 3 hours of physical activity per day, people aged 5-18 should do 1 hour of at least moderate intensity activity per day and adults should do 30 minutes of moderate activity per day.
Generally people living in the Wakefield District do less physical activity than national and regional averages, therefore increasing physical activity is a priority. The Health & Wellbeing Board tasked the Health Improvement team to identify what stops people from being physically active as well as what would help them. Therefore, this report pulls together the insights together from the following sources:
· ‘Barriers to Physical Activity Research’ (2014) which engaged 1100 residents in the Wakefield district across a wide range of ages, with 700 of these living in the 7 Change4Life areas
· Wakefield District Lifestyle Survey (2009) – a representative survey conducted on 25,000 people
· School Health & Wellbeing Survey (2013) – conducted on 6,000 Primary, Secondary and Further Education pupils
· Multiple Health Behaviours Research (2013) – a qualitative piece of research conducted on 50 people aged 16-45 who take part in 2 or more unhealthy behaviours
· Leisure Service Review Consultation (2014) – a robust survey of a representative sample of people living in Wakefield
The layout of this report enables the barriers and facilitators for different groups of people to be identified such as those that are more important to people that are active vs inactive, people across different age ranges, genders or socioeconomic groups.
Summary Findings:
Awareness
· Awareness of the recommended level of physical activity is not a barrier for the majority of people as knowledge of the recommended levels of PA is fairly high.
· The majority of adults who are active (70.8%) know they are doing enough and the majority of people who are inactive know they are not doing enough (65.5%). The profiles in this report highlight certain groups where awareness is low.
· However, the majority (2/3) of those that do almost the recommended amount of physical activity (30 minutes on 4 days of the week) think they are active enough.
· The majority of parents with a child under 5 that is active (86.2%) know they are doing enough, however levels parents’ with a child that is inactive have low levels of awareness that their child is not doing enough (31.6%).
· Parents of under 5's that are inactive have lower levels of awareness than inactive adults and inactive 5-18.
· The majority of those aged 5-18 (parents of 5-18 and 5-18) that are active (70.4%) know they are doing enough and the majority of those aged 5-18 that are inactive know they are not doing enough (67.8%).
· People (adults, under 5's, 5-18) who are inactive have lower levels of awareness than those that are active.
Parent & Children - Activity Levels
· There appears to be no difference between the activity levels of children whose parents are active and those who aren’t.
· A high proportion of inactive parents had children that were active (parents with children under 5years -68.6%; parents with children aged 5-18 - 73%). How can inactive parents have very active children?
· Around 1/5 of parents (23%) who were doing the recommended amount had children (5-18) that weren’t.
Intention to Change
· The majority of adults wanted to be more active (64.5%). The majority of inactive adults want to change (Barriers to Physical Activity 72.3%; Lifestyle Survey 59%). Inactive adults are more likely to want to do more activity than active adults (72.2 v 64.5%)
· Less than half of parents with a 0-4 year old wanted their child to do more activity (42%). However parents of inactive 0-4 year olds are more likely to want their child to do more activity than parents of active 0-4 year olds (52.9% vs 41.8%)
· The majority of people aged 5-18 (parents and 5-18’s) wanted to be more active (59.6%). Inactive 5-18 year olds (parents and 5-18’s) are more likely to want to do more activity than active 5-18 year olds (77.5 v 59.6%)
· Adults that wanted to be more active were more likely to want their children to be more active (66.1%)
· Adults that did not want to be more active were more likely to not want their children to be more active (56.5%), however 30.6% did
· Adults that were inactive were more likely to want their children to be more active than parents that were active (59.4% vs 55.5%)
Barriers - ‘What stops you from being active/being as active as you would like?’
The below information provides a snapshot and description of key barriers that people mentioned, those that were more relevant to certain groups have been drawn out in the profiles in this report.
Work – Time
Barriers relating to work commitments and a lack of time due to this were the most commonly mentioned (19.9%). Specifically people mentioned difficulty in fitting it into the working day due to working long hours, travel time, having a sedentary job and balancing this with other commitments (e.g. family life) being the main reasons given.
Work – Quotes:· ‘Managing a work/life balance as well as attending the gym or playing netball whilst having an under 1 year old is sometimes hard to achieve’
· ‘Working long hours, leaving you too tired to do exercise at the end of a long day’
· ‘Time through the week - by the time I get home from work (45 minutes - 1hr travel time) and make the tea it is time for bath and bed!’
· ‘Nothing stops me exercising, but work, and work related stress, getting home and feeling demotivated sometimes delays me getting started’
· ‘Full time working limits and 2 hour commute limits my ability to be more active within working week’
· ‘Timing of exercise classes do not fit in with working full time and having a young family’
· ‘Difficulty fitting it into working day - working hours vs pool timetabling’
· ‘Family commitments and lack of time, exacerbated by travelling to and from work, which takes a ridiculous amount of time’
· ‘Everyday life having to go to work full time, then go home feed a husband and family’
· ‘Lack of spare time, can't be bothered after work’
· ‘Yes - the hours l have to spend at work in order to carry out my workload - currently around 10 per day which involves me getting up at 5.30am every morning. By the time l get home from work and have done the things that need doing there l am too tired to contemplate any activity. Weekends are taken up doing housework and caring for my elderly mum’
· ‘Lack of time due to work commitments and daily family life’
· ‘Lack of time for me. Work full time, finish at 5pm. Daughter does a lot of activities so run her about 5 days a week’
· ‘Working mum and find it difficult to have the time’
· ‘Time spent at work sitting down’
· ‘Time taken out of working day for travel’
· ‘Having a sedentary job. Both my husband and I working full-time, 2 hours per day commuting leaves little time for fitness activities when trying to run a family’
Time - General
A lack of time or lack of spare time in general was the second most common barrier (15.8%). The majority of people that said that time was a barrier did not expand on why they felt this. Many people who mentioned a lack of time (due to work, caring responsibilities or generally) appeared to day they had a lack of time because physical activity was perceived to be something that required access to a facility.
Time Quotes:· ‘I don’t have enough time’
· ‘Doesn't seem to be enough time, it often gets put down the list as a priority which is something I'd like to change’
· ‘Time restraints’
· ‘If I had more time I'd probably do more activity’
· ‘Not having enough spare time’
· ‘Life is very busy so its not always possible to fit in’
· ‘Finding spare time to keep active is an issue’
· ‘In process of renovating a property so too busy’
· ‘Not having enough time during the day’
· ‘Don’t seem to have the time to be physically active above the 3 days that i do some physical activity’
· ‘Having enough time to get all the exercise I'd like’
· ‘Just don't have the time to go and exercise but enjoy walks with the dog’
· ‘I am restricted by the amount of time I have free’
· ‘Finding time to do my garden’
· ‘Not enough time in a day’
· ‘I don't have the time as I have other things to do. I do sometimes use this time to do additional gardening’
Illness/Disability
The third most common barrier was illness/disability (15.7%), including musculo-skeletal conditions, long term conditions and mental health problems which appeared to influence the amount and type of activity that people felt that they could do and whether they could be active at all. A number of people simply mentioned that ’health issues’ were a barrier without expanding on why they prevented them from doing physical activity. It appeared that people were not fully aware of the benefits that being active would bring to improving their health or how to tailor their activity levels for their condition. This could be a misunderstanding of what physical activity is. For some, (20.6%) ‘better health’ would help them to be more active and for others ‘nothing’ would help (10%). However a small proportion (8.3%) mentioned that they would like to do physical activity that was tailored to their issues/abilities. A number of people that mentioned poor health as a barrier said that they tried to be as active as they could or would like to be more active – interestingly these comments were made by the older participants. Furthermore, there was little difference in the proportion of people that mentioned ‘illness/disability’ as a barrier that wanted to be more active as those that did not mention it.
Quotes Musculo-skeletal/mobility:· ‘Back problems would like to do swimming though’
· ‘Degenerative disk disease - not as mobile - problems with hips’
· ‘I have flexibility problems with hip and shoulder’
· ‘Bad back’
· ‘Medical problems - Fibromyalgia - Arthritis of the spine’
· ‘Arthritis in the knee, has to rely on staff to take place’
· ‘I suffer with MS’
· ‘I am presently awaiting a spinal operation which has created barriers to physical activity although i still walk a lot as it is better to keep moving’
· ‘Bad knee – accident’
· ‘I have a disability and don’t have use of my legs completely, muscle issues’
· ‘Wheelchair user, lives on own, finds it hard to get out and about’
· ‘Physical disability’
· ‘A bad knee (surgery on this a year ago) which limits walking to less than 1km at a time before pain stops me going any further. I have other disabilities which puts outdoor activities at risk’
· ‘Still walking but not as far as I would like to, my knee cap is in half, waiting for a replacement’
· ‘Knee injury restricts the types of activities I can undertake’
· ‘I have a knee problem which slightly restricts me’
· I use a mobility scooter to get about as my legs don’t work so good
· ‘I have Fibromyalgia and in a lot of pain every day’
· ‘I suffer with MS and find it difficult to move about’
· ‘I am 60 years old which stops me from doing a lot of physical activity as I suffer from a bad back’
· ‘Suffer with osteoporosis, cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes’
· ‘Arthritis of spine and asthma’
· ‘Health issues, prolapsed disc and heart trouble’
· ‘Can't walk too far and nothing local’
· ‘I can’t walk as much as I used to this is due to medical problems and a reduction in stamina’
· walk with a walking stick
· Health issues. I have a prosthetic leg. If my health was good I would do exercise, I used to walk miles.
· Health issues, I have only got one lung
· ‘Bad legs – weight’
Quotes Long term Conditions:
· ‘Asthma - need to think about when e.g. cold weather’
· ‘Blood pressure. Arthritic’
· ‘Asthma’
· ‘Breathing (ill health)’
· ‘Illness - mental health’
· ‘Low mood’
· ‘My health stops me from being more active - COPD condition I can only do a certain amount/type of exercise at my own pace’
· ‘Asthma prevents from doing too much for a long time’
· ‘I have asthma, so have to be careful’
· ‘I suffer with bad health and have difficulty breathing’
· ‘I have had a stroke’
· ‘Disability, Arthritis, Fibromyalga, Asthma, Depression, Sleep Apnoea, Non epileptic seizures’
· Angina and lung problem chronic bronchitis tiredness
· Health issues COPD, Dementia
· Recently had a triple bypass
Mental Health Quotes:
· ‘Health and mental problems’
· ‘Struggling with bouts of Depression’
· ‘Too stressed’
· ‘I find it difficult to go to classes and I have low confidence’
Other Health Quotes:
· ‘I suffer ill health and find it difficult to get about without the support of my carer’
· ‘I sometimes suffer ill health and become tired quite easily’
· ‘I suffer with ill health with my weight and find it difficult’
· Poor vision and mobility
Poor Health but want to be active quotes:
· I have to use a walking stick but try to walk as much as I can
· ill health but doesn’t stop
· New knee, don't try to let me stop doing anything.
· I have a bad back but try to get about as much as I can
· Yes arthritis. I have a knee replacement recently advised by hospital to only do so many lengths swimming, only so much walking. I would like to do more but must do what I am told.
· Arthritis and other health. As much as can do.
· The thing that stops me at the moment is poor health - recovering from a stroke and trying to build myself back up again
· I try to do as much as I can but as I use a mobility scooter so it is difficult
· Would like to do more - arthritis prevents
· I can’t walk as much as I used to this is due to medical problems and a reduction in stamina
· Medical problems can prevent be from being involved. I have spoken with my GP for advice however they suggested I reduce the amount I do.
· Would love to walk more but can’t due to poor health reasons
Money