57.2 % of Belgians exercise at least weekly. This is shown by data from Statbel, the Belgian statistical office, and Eurostat, the European statistical office[1]. This puts Belgium slightly above the European average (55.9%). Finns are the ultimate sportsmen and women: no fewer than 88% practise a sport at least once a week. Bulgarians come last with 23.3% of them practising a sport weekly.
On average, 54.5% of European women practise a sport at least weekly. This figure is 54.3% among Belgian women. 57.6% of European men practise a sport on average once a week compared to 60.2% of Belgian men. Men therefore exercise more than women, and this trend is slightly more pronounced in Belgium than the EU average.
41.1% of low-skilled Belgians practise a sport at least once a week. The EU average is 45.4%. At 69.3%, high-skilled Belgians are close to the EU average (70.2%). At 28.2 percentage points, the gap between the low- and high-skilled people in terms of weekly physical activity is nowhere as wide as in Belgium, with the exception of Slovakia (29.6 percentage points).
40.1% of Belgians in the lowest income category practise a sport weekly; the EU average is much higher at 48.2%. As for the highest income category, the percentage of Belgians practising a sport weekly (71.4%) is slightly higher than the EU average (67.1%).
About these figures
Eurostat, the European Statistics Office, collected data on the physical activity of EU citizens in a typical week. These data cover activity outside working hours. These figures were collected by means of the SILC survey organised by Statbel, the Belgian statistical office, and the national statistical offices of the other member countries.
[1] Source Eurostat: figures 2022 - European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC)
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ilc_hch07b/default/table… https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ilc_hch08b/default/table…
Data from Germany have low reliability and are not shown in the data set of Eurostat.