Average weekly time spent by adults being physically active in New Zealand

Respondents were asked the following questions:
Q7: Thinking back over the last 7 days (not including today) have you done any physical activity that was specifically for the purpose of sport, exercise or recreation?
Q19: In total, how many hours did you spend being physically active for sport, exercise or recreation?
Q97: Which of the following have you done in the last 7 days?
List of activities to select from:
Basketball, Boxing, Canoeing / kayaking, Dance/dancing (e.g. ballet, hip hop etc), Day tramp, Football (soccer), Gardening, Golf, Group fitness class (e.g. aerobics, cross fit), Hunting, Individual workout using equipment, Marine fishing, Motorcycling, Mountain biking, Netball, Pilates, Playing games (e.g. with kids), Road cycling, Running / jogging, Surfing / body boarding, Swimming, Table tennis, Tennis, Walking, Yoga.

Sport: activities undertaken in a competition or tournament or informally, and individuals differ in their degree of competitiveness irrespective of how they participate.
Active recreation: all activities not considered to be sport. For adults - physical activity done specifically for the purpose of sport, exercise or recreation; for young people the word ‘recreation’ was changed to ‘fun’ and PE was also included.

To account for biases in the sample design and non-response bias, the data was weighted before reporting. The purpose of weighting was to adjust the sample to represent the overall New Zealand population, using the 2018 Census.

https://sportnz.org.nz/media/iikdkau3/active-nz-year-7-2023-technical-report_july2024.pdf

At URL provided, under 'Report and data tables' menu, download 'Main data tables'.

Sport NZ’s Active NZ Survey provides a point-in-time snapshot of participation in sport and active recreation explored through the lenses of age, gender, ethnicity and deprivation.

Sport New Zealand (Sport NZ) is mandated to monitor New Zealanders’ participation in physical activity. One of Sport NZ’s functions is to “promote and advocate the importance of participation in physical activity by all New Zealanders for their health and wellbeing”. This includes targeting specific population groups such as Pacific peoples, women, older New Zealanders and people with disabilities, as well as ensuring sport, recreation and physical activity are culturally appropriate for Māori.

This report focuses on:
• how much participation happens in any given week, how many people are participating, and who they are
• how people participate
• how young people allocate their time spent in organised and informal participation
• what motivates participation
• what the barriers are to participation.