Research Says That 2/3rd of Indians Lead Sedentary Lives

With the constant barrage of news about the importance of fitness, health and physical activity, it’s surprising to see that 2/3rd of the Indian population follow a sedentary lifestyle. Market research says that 2/3rd of Indians don’t exercise despite there being lots of media hype about exercise. The population is concerned about leading a healthy life, lack of time and motivation makes people shy away from exercise. The research agency Mintel did a research survey on 3000 Indian adults above age 18.

64% of consumers said that they don’t exercise but in a strange oxymoronic trend 46% said that creating a healthy lifestyle was their top concern. 31% of the sample respondents say that time scarcity stops them from exercising. 67% of Indians who exercise said that they chose rudimentary exercise forms like brisk walking. Only 26% of Indians said that they engaged in cross fit, Pilates, yoga and active sports like football and cricket. Only 11% did advanced body training exercises like pushups, lunges and squats. Many Indians said that fitness classes and gym memberships were expensive.

There has been a sharp rise in sports nutrition product category between 2015 and 2018. 65% of new launches happened in 2018 and out of these 935 of products had functional claims. 69% of these claims were related to muscle and weight gain while 45% claimed energy gain as their goal. 22% of these products claimed immunity boost as their result.

Market survey about sports nutrition products showed lack of awareness as 13% of Indians said that they knew very less about the properties of such products 11% also thought that consumption without proper knowledge will lead to bad side effects.