National Study on the Physical Activity Level as a Means of Preserving Health

Among the factors acting as a burden to health, physical inactivity ranks fourth as a risk factor for all-cause mortality and sixth among the risk factor for loss of disability in adjusted life years. Unhealthy diets and physical inactivity are key risk factors for the major noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer and diabetes. It were investigated a sample of 1106 Romanian subjects, aged 18 and over. 53% of the questioned population is informed regarding the benefits of daily physical activities, but only 35% of Romanians declare that they find it easy to apply what they know about maintaining health. Their main sources of information are: television (56%) and Internet (17%). 49% perform appropriate physical activity; walking (51%) and household activities (32%) are the main physical activities performed by Romanians, while sports are performed by few of those interviewed (running – 12%, fitness – 7%, cycling – 6%, football – 6%, gymnastics – 4%, while all the other did not score over 2%). Half of respondents practice physical activities rarely or not at all, and the main reasons for the sedentary behaviour are the lack of time (42%), lack of money (16%) or convenience (15%). Nearly half of Romanians are sedentary. Although the level of information regarding the benefits of physical activities is satisfactory, the degree of putting this information into practice is very small; the population is not sufficiently aware of the necessity to perform physical activities, in spite of the fact that the effects of a sedentary lifestyle are evident.