WHO study: one in four teens had no active day in a week

One in four adolescents worldwide did not have a single day in the previous week with at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, 4 November 2026. The finding comes from "A generation missing out: global trends in adolescent physical activity, 2010–2025", a WHO study published in The Lancet Global Health. It draws on 389 surveys in 140 countries and territories, covering more than 3.2 million young people aged 11 to 17. WHO says about 240 million adolescents fall into this "no active days" group, that only 14% reach the 60-minute mark every day, and that the picture has barely changed in 15 years.

Sixty minutes a day of activity that raises the heart rate is the yardstick used in the study for adolescents. The new figures show that most young people are nowhere near it, and that a large group is not even meeting it once a week. United Nations reporting on the study described 15 years of "almost no progress" in getting young people moving.

The study's framing matters for how readers think about the problem. WHO argues that how active young people are depends heavily on the environment they live in, and calls for policies that make movement easy, safe and accessible in everyday life, rather than placing the blame on individual teenagers.

The gender gap is the sharpest finding for families. Girls are behind boys almost everywhere, and the gap shows up at both ends: more girls report no active days, and far fewer are active every day. For young people in South Asia the country spread is also striking. Nepal sits among the countries where about 40% of adolescents reported no active days, while Bangladesh is among those where more than 30% reported daily activity, which suggests that the region's habits are not fixed.

For India, adolescents make up nearly 21% of the population, according to one report on the study. The reports we found did not give separate India figures, so it is not possible to say from them where Indian teenagers stand against the global average.

Peepals calculation: Girls were about 27% more likely than boys to report no active days (28% against 22%; 28 ÷ 22 ≈ 1.27), and boys were about 1.5 times as likely as girls to be active every day (17% against 11%; 17 ÷ 11 ≈ 1.55). Our calculation from the reported figures.

Short-term: Health ministries, schools and sports bodies have fresh, comparable data for 140 countries and territories to show where adolescents are least active, including how wide the gap between girls and boys is in each place.

Long-term: With levels almost unchanged since 2010 and no country on track for the 2030 target, the study's title, a generation missing out, sums up the risk. WHO's message is that this will only change if cities, schools and families make activity part of ordinary days.

Who is affected: adolescents aged 11 to 17 everywhere, especially girls; parents and schools; city planners; and governments working towards the 2030 physical activity target.

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