How to support women to meet their physical health goals
The UK is facing a huge amount of pressure from a health perspective. By 2040, the number of people living in poor health in England is projected to reach 9.1 million – almost one in five of the adult population.
It’s therefore crucial that businesses adapt to a vast array of individual needs to get the most out of their people.
Especially given that productivity losses within organisations – due to increasing absenteeism and presenteeism – cost the UK economy an estimated £138bn in 2023.
The links between lack of physical activity and growing rates of diabetes, heart disease and cancer are well known, but as a nation we are not getting any healthier.
And, if our latest report - Active Women, Healthy Lives: Understanding Barriers to Women’s Participation in Physical Activity - is anything to go by, this especially applies to women.
It found that fewer than one in four (23%) women engage in 30 minutes of exercise or achieve 7,000 steps a day, five or more times a week, with women aged 40 to 59 recording the highest levels of inactivity.
It’s also notable that, when women are working out, weight management is the key motivating factor (41%), compared to other health benefits such as mental wellbeing (26%) or increased muscle mass and strength (12%).
What's holding women back?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, time is a common barrier for women being more active, with many reporting the juggle of busy work schedules and child-care responsibilities.
No doubt aggravated in recent years by a cost-of-living crisis and childcare challenges, such as rising fees and capacity shortages.
Another sobering fact found in the report is that body image concerns and a fear of being judged also rank highly as negatively impacting women’s physical activity levels (62%).
Elsewhere, psychological factors are most likely to prevent younger women from engaging in physical exercise - a staggering 70% of 20- to 29-year-olds report this.
Addressing the say-do gap
All of this is despite 41% of women expressing a desire to reach their recommended activity levels.
Clearly there is a discrepancy between what women want to do and what they feel they can do.
Government, employers and the health insurance industry have significant opportunities to make a difference here.
At a wider societal and government level, this involves measures such as expanding funding for grassroots sport and physical activity to make it more inclusive and accessible for women.
Reflected in the fact that, concerningly, only 4% of women are taking part in team sports, with all the social and community benefits this can bring.
An embedded, holistic solution
The report also recommends that targeted health and wellbeing interventions are needed and calls on employers to register the health and wellbeing of their people at board level.
The hope is that this will play a transformative role, by moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach to employee wellbeing.
This means specifically thinking about female employees; to help organisations better understand where and when different employees need support, while improving the uptake of any interventions on offer in a way that boosts their benefits for the business.
Ultimately, until the state of UK’s health improves, the working environment needs to change to become more supportive of people’s different life stages.
It’s time for businesses to think long and hard about the barriers they could help lift, especially for women.
This isn’t just better for the bottom line of a business, it benefits employees individually. And wider society obviously needs it too.
Read the full report here.
In partnership with Vitality
At Vitality, we take a unique approach to insurance. As well as providing high-quality comprehensive cover, we provide a complete wellness package that can help boost employee engagement and productivity.
