The primary focus of the fitness industry must be addressing physical inactivity. That was the very clear message coming out of November’s ukactive Summit – the gathering place for UK policymakers to discuss sport and fitness. The event saw a well-orchestrated strategic shift away from a focus on combating obesity towards a new focus on inactivity as a standalone issue, with all the key speakers highlighting the challenges in this area.

Fred Turok, ukactive chair, had started the ball rolling on this debate in comments made at Coca-Cola’s ‘Together We Move’ conference in October, at which he criticised the UK’s ‘obsession’ with obesity as an isolated issue. This had, he said, created too much focus on body image rather than improved health and wellbeing. He urged delegates to address physical inactivity in its own right, highlighting the strong health and financial rationale for doing so.

At the ukactive Summit he spelled this out. Physical activity levels in the UK have declined by 20 per cent in the last 50 years, and are forecast to decline by a further 15 per cent by 2030. The associated costs to the economy as a whole are £10bn a year, which will rise to £50bn by 2050.

The human cost is also huge: 37,000 needless deaths in England each year from diseases associated with chronic inactivity, which shortens lifespan by up to five years. Globally, inactivity is responsible for 17 per cent of premature deaths, making it the fourth largest factor in mortality.

So what should we be aiming for? Turok said ukactive’s ambition is a 1 per cent increase in levels of activity year on year for the next five years, which he said would save the country £1.2bn (see p36). Meanwhile Andy Burnham MP, shadow secretary of state for health, said a target of 50 per cent of the UK population being active by 2025 would be a cornerstone of Labour’s manifesto at the next general election.

It’s good news that the political parties are getting on board: Jane Ellison MP, parliamentary under-secretary of state for public health, said she would be “astonished” if physical activity wasn’t included in the Conservative manifesto, and we also have a new cross-party commission investigating the issue of physical inactivity (see p28).

But it will need a bold approach to bring real change. At the Summit, clever parallels were drawn by Sir Keith Mills – founder of Sported (see HCM NovDec 13, p72) – between the challenge of inactivity and the anti-smoking lobby. He pointed out that, once the government had recognised that smoking was a cause of death, it mobilised all its resources in a joined-up approach to combat the challenge – but even then, it took 40 years to make a satisfactory difference. His message was that we need to dig in for the long term if we’re to achieve behaviour change and turn the tide of inactivity.

We may also need to be bolder in our messaging. Just as we had ‘smoking kills’, it may now be time to consider an ‘inactivity kills’ message, driving home the full seriousness of the issue in a bid to steer the UK population into positive lifestyle choices.