WHO says 240 million teens report no active days

The World Health Organization said Wednesday that about 240 million adolescents globally report no active days in a week, warning that low physical activity raises long-term health risks.

The WHO's new estimates found that one in four adolescents aged 11 to 17 said they had no day in the previous week with at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity.

The study, published in The Lancet Global Health, was based on hundreds of population surveys from 140 countries and territories involving more than 3.2 million teenagers, the WHO said.

Across the surveys, adolescents reported being active on an average of 2.7 days a week. Only 14 percent reported being active on all seven days.

The WHO said physical inactivity is a major risk factor for heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers. It said adolescent physical activity had remained "virtually unchanged" over 15 years.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said girls were being left furthest behind. The estimates found that 28 percent of girls reported no active days, compared with 22 percent of boys. Only 11 percent of girls reported being active every day, compared with 17 percent of boys.

The WHO said activity levels differed widely between countries. It said 40 percent of adolescents in Namibia, Nepal and the Philippines reported no active days, while more than 30 percent of young people in Bangladesh and Serbia reported daily physical activity.

Tedros said the answer was not to tell adolescents to try harder, but to build schools, streets and communities where movement and play are safe and normal.