Scientists at Stanford University analysed over 68 million days of physical activity based on smartphone measurements from nearly 720,000 people across 46 countries.
The study was published in Journal Nature, and all the people involved in the study had their activity monitored on a fitness app and how many steps they took a day were counted.
They found that Hong Kong was the most active country in the world with a score of 22.2 on the activity inequality scale with an average step count of nearly 7,000 a day.
The activity inequality that they were measuring is the difference between the fittest people in a country and the laziest people in that particular country.
New Zealand isn’t as lazy as our mates across the ditch, but we’re not quite the most active either and we came in at 6th on the list with an activity inequality of 31.1.
China placed second on the list (24.5), followed by Sweden (24.6), South Korea (24.7), and the Czech Republic (24.8).
Two sets of neighbouring countries, United States and Canada and New Zealand and Australia both broke the 30 markers but Saudi Arabia was deemed the least active with a score of 32.5.
The full list of countries is below.
The following table and more data are also available here.
| Rank | Country | Activity Inequality |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hong Kong | 22.2 |
| 2 | China | 24.5 |
| 3 | Sweden | 24.6 |
| 4 | South Korea | 24.7 |
| 5 | Czech Republic | 24.8 |
| 6 | Japan | 24.8 |
| 7 | Singapore | 24.9 |
| 8 | Norway | 25.2 |
| 9 | Ukraine | 25.2 |
| 10 | Netherlands | 26.1 |
| 11 | Spain | 26.1 |
| 12 | Taiwan | 26.2 |
| 13 | Denmark | 26.2 |
| 14 | Russia | 26.2 |
| 15 | Chile | 26.3 |
| 16 | Switzerland | 26.3 |
| 17 | Turkey | 26.4 |
| 18 | Finland | 26.6 |
| 19 | Germany | 26.6 |
| 20 | France | 26.8 |
| 21 | Poland | 26.9 |
| 22 | Brazil | 27.2 |
| 23 | Israel | 27.2 |
| 24 | Thailand | 27.2 |
| 25 | Hungary | 27.3 |
| 26 | Italy | 27.5 |
| 27 | Portugal | 27.6 |
| 28 | Belgium | 27.6 |
| 29 | Mexico | 27.9 |
| 30 | United Arab Emirates | 28.1 |
| 31 | Indonesia | 28.3 |
| 32 | Romania | 28.3 |
| 33 | South Africa | 28.4 |
| 34 | Ireland | 28.5 |
| 35 | Malaysia | 28.8 |
| 36 | United Kingdom | 28.8 |
| 37 | Qatar | 29.1 |
| 38 | India | 29.3 |
| 39 | Greece | 29.5 |
| 40 | Philippines | 29.8 |
| 41 | New Zealand | 30.1 |
| 42 | United States | 30.3 |
| 43 | Egypt | 30.3 |
| 44 | Canada | 30.3 |
| 45 | Australia | 30.4 |
| 46 | Saudi Arabia | 32.5 |
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