The challenges of everyday life, such as financial strain, caring responsibilities and pressures that affect emotional wellbeing or personal capacity, can all shape people’s ability to be physically active.
Sport England's new Activity Check-in report explores this topic and also highlights how everyday activity, such as work, family duties and household tasks, can both support and limit people’s capacity to be active in their free time.
Activity levels are lower among adults facing life challenges, pressures in everyday life that reduce people’s time, stability, energy or confidence to be active.
Their research explores these life challenges through three broad lenses:
1. Personal pressures
Pressures that affect emotional wellbeing or personal capacity - such as anxiety about the future, caring for others, managing addiction, or living in unsafe or unstable conditions.
2. Practical pressures
Pressures linked to money, resources or logistics, such as struggling to make ends meet, difficulty planning ahead financially, limited support for basic needs, or reliance on others for digital access.
3. Inclusion pressures
Feeling unfairly treated due to protected characteristics or struggling with English, which can limit confidence and belonging.
