Saudi residents engaged in lesser physical activity than UAE and Qatar counterparts

DUBAI: Saudi residents were engaged in lesser physical activity compared with their Emirati and Qatari counterparts as they took fewer steps each day, researchers from Stanford University have found out.
People living in Saudi Arabia, on average, took 3,807 steps daily and those who reside in Qatar recorded 4,158, while UAE-based individuals had the highest step count of 4,516 in the Gulf region.
The Stanford University researchers analyzed 68 million days’ worth of physical activity from 717,527 individuals in 111 countries around the world, using the Argus activity-monitoring app installed in their smartphones.
Most smartphones available in the market nowadays have a built-in accelerometer that can record steps. The global daily average of daily steps was 4,961, equivalent to a leisurely stroll of 4 kilometers.
Hong Kong residents took the longest daily walks of 6,880 steps — or about 6 kilometers – while their neighbors in the Chinese mainland had 6,819 and the Japanese had 6,010 steps on a daily basis.
By comparison, Americans walked an average 4,774 steps a day while Britons managed a higher 5,444 steps daily. Indonesians meanwhile took the least steps of just 3,513 in a day.
The findings provide important insights to improving people’s health, as the data particularly explain global patterns of obesity and give new ideas for tackling it, according to the researchers.
The Stanford University study noted the activity inequality — or the difference between those who take walks and those who do not — in some countries.
Tim Althoff, one of the researchers, said: “For instance, Sweden had one of the smallest gaps between activity rich and activity poor … it also had one of the lowest rates of obesity.”
Females particularly feature in activity inequality, the researchers noted, as women in countries such as the US and Saudi Arabia, it was women spending less time being active.
“Aspects of the built environment, such as the walkability of a city, are associated with a smaller gender gap in activity and lower activity inequality,” the researchers said.
“In more walkable cities, activity is greater throughout the day and throughout the week, across age, gender, and body mass index groups, with the greatest increases in activity found for females.”