Movement & Exercise

One or two days a week is the most common answer, and none at all is a close second#

The WHI 2026 survey asked one question about exercise: How many days per week do you get at least 30 minutes of exercise? Of the 7,507 responses that answered it, 30.9% chose zero. They reported no day with at least 30 minutes of exercise in a usual week. Below, this is called zero exercise days.

The most common answer, though, was not zero. It was one or two days, at 31.9%.

Over three in five reported two days or fewer — 62.8% of answers, against 37.2% reporting three or more.

Zero days means no day reached 30 minutes of exercise—not no movement. The question does not measure total minutes or intensity and cannot establish whether WHO activity guidelines are met. Figures count survey responses. Methodology.

Zero-exercise answers rose; one-to-two-day answers fell#

The two largest changes in the table run in opposite directions and are close to equal in size: zero-day answers are 2.9 points higher than the earlier sample's and one-to-two-day answers 2.3 points lower. The top of the distribution barely moved.

Both editions asked people covered by Loop the same exercise question, with the same four options. These figures compare the answers in two samples; they do not measure changes in individual people or establish a trend in the wider population.

Comparisons use WHI 2025's Movement & Exercise chapter, which gives counts and sample sizes. Its gender chapter reports conflicting rates.

Zero exercise days fall at every step up the income scale#

The rate falls at every one of the six steps between the named bands, from 36.7% to 19.3%. The steepest single step sits between ₹15–25 lakh and ₹25–40 lakh, where it drops 5.4 points, and the two highest bands land close together at 19.5% and 19.3%. "Prefer not to say" is an answer option rather than a rung on the scale and is shown separately; one further response left income blank.

That 17.4-point spread is wider than the 10.7-point gap between women and men, and wider than the 10.3-point spread across age bands. This comparison does not adjust for age or sex, and neither the sex gap nor the age spread is adjusted for income. The same gradient runs through the rest of the survey, as the Income & Job Role page shows across screening and other behaviours. WHI 2025 reported the same direction on the opposite measure, its highest earners reporting close to double the share exercising three or more days a week that its lowest earners did.

Women in their 20s report zero exercise days more often than any other group shown here#

At 40.5%, women in their 20s report the highest zero-exercise share of any group shown here. Women's share is above men's in the 20s, the 30s and the 40s, by between 9.6 and 12.2 points. In the 50s the two are near equal, 22.9% against 23.4%, on the two smallest cells in the table — 83 women and 145 men. That is one near-equal pair on the page's smallest samples, not evidence that the sexes converge with age.

The difference is not made by unusually active young men. Within each sex, the 20s is the age band with the highest zero-exercise share: 40.5% for women, 29.3% for men. Men's lowest share is in their 40s, at 23.0%. WHI 2025 reported the same direction on different age groupings, with its youngest cohort reporting the most zero-exercise weeks and its oldest the fewest.

The sex gap is also wider than the one reported in WHI 2025’s Movement & Exercise chapter. That chapter reported 33.2% for women and 25.4% for men, a 7.8-point gap, against 10.7 points now. The women’s figure is 5.0 points higher and the men’s 2.1 points higher in the 2026 sample. These are comparisons between samples, not changes measured in the same people.

Physically active jobs show the same zero-exercise rate as desk jobs#

Desk-based work and physically active work return almost the same zero-exercise share, 33.4% and 33.3%. The group in the middle (a desk plus movement, under six hours seated) sits about 7.5 points below both, at 25.8%.

These are work styles as respondents described them, with example occupations attached, not an occupational classification. The exercise question also does not separate exercise done at work from exercise done outside it, so what the table shows is that the two outer groups reported a zero week about as often as each other, not that either moves less in total. The Sedentary vs Active page follows the same three groups through sleep, screening and stress. Where people work, in the office or at home, is a different cut again and belongs to the Work Model page.

Two in three name walking; fewer than one in five name strength training#

Respondents could select more than one type, so these shares add to more than 100%. Walking is the most selected type by a wide margin. Strength training is named by fewer than one in five, running or cardio by fewer than one in six.

Aerobic activity and muscle-strengthening are not alternatives. The WHO's 2020 guideline asks adults for muscle-strengthening activity on two or more days a week in addition to its weekly aerobic target, because those activities provide additional health benefits (Bull et al., 2020); a brisk walk is itself a moderate-intensity aerobic activity. What this question records is which types someone selected, not how often or how hard they did them, so 18.5% is the share naming any strength training at all.

The "None" option sits third on a list of exercise types, at 18.2%. It is a selected checkbox rather than a verified absence of all activity, and it is a striking place for it to sit.

Most reported step bands are under 8,000 a day#

Among the 3,826 responses that gave a tracked step band, 44.5% are under 5,000 and 73.5% under 8,000. Some 8.6%, about one in twelve, report 10,000 or more.

A meta-analysis of fifteen cohorts found that taking more daily steps is associated with lower all-cause mortality, and that the association flattens at roughly 8,000–10,000 steps a day for adults under 60 and roughly 6,000–8,000 for adults aged 60 and over (Paluch et al., The Lancet Public Health, 2022). That is an association across cohorts rather than a line each person has to clear, and the bands above are what people reported rather than what a device recorded.

The step table excludes 1,760 answers marked “I don't track” and describes only the 3,826 responses with a tracked band.

Long work hours lead what people say stops them walking more#

A separate question asked: What's been your biggest blocker in reaching more steps? It drew 2,767 answers. The remaining 6,330 responses are blank and the reason is not known. Respondents could select more than one option.

Long work hours were selected in half of these answers, 50.9%. Leaving home too early and returning too late came second, at 26.2%, and lack of motivation or accountability third, at 23.6%: real, and behind the working day. The question is about steps rather than exercise in general, and one of its eight options — preferring other forms of exercise to walking — is a preference rather than a barrier. Because respondents could select several options, the shares cannot be added into a count of people.

Half of those reporting zero exercise days also reported a high-stress week#

Among the 7,342 responses that answered both questions, high stress falls at every step as exercise days rise, from 50.9% to 27.9% — a ratio of about 1.8 to 1.

Which way that runs is not something a single answer sheet can settle. Across the literature Stults-Kolehmainen and Sinha reviewed, the majority finding is that experiencing stress impairs efforts to be physically active; a minority of the prospective studies they assessed found the opposite, people becoming more active under stress (Stults-Kolehmainen & Sinha, Sports Medicine, 2014). Read the table as two things reported in the same answer sheet.

WHI 2025 published three exercise bands against high stress on the same 7-and-above threshold, and the 2026 share is higher in all three: 33.4% to 39.7% at one to two days, 28.3% to 36.2% at three to four, and 22.0% to 27.9% at five or more. Its table has no zero-day row, so the 50.9% above has no counterpart in that edition.

High stress across the whole survey was 40.4% of 7,346 responses, compared with the 33.9% reported in WHI 2025. The Stress page covers this broader result.

WHI 2025's 33.9% stress headline has a published count; its nicotine breakdown implies 37.3%. This conflict makes the size of the increase uncertain.