A partnership between ISCA member SESC, the Brazilian Ministry of Sports and six federal unversities (UFRGS, UFRJ, UFG, UFAM, UFS and UFBA) have enabled the development and launch of what is to be the country’s first National Sports and Physical Activity Research.

The research was launched on Monday 22 June with an interactive website and video in Portuguese.

Answering questions such as How many Brazilians do sport or physical activity? Where, how and why did they do sport or physical activity? How many are sedentary? Who used to do sport or physical activity but has abandoned it? Why did they abandon it?

The main results of the study are:

• 45.9% of Brazilians do not do any sport nor physical activity. Amongst them, 50.4% are women and 41.6% are men.
• Of those who abandoned sport or physical activity last year, 69.8% said it was due to lack of time or other priorities.
• Football is the most practiced sport (59.8%), followed by volleyball (9.7%) and swimming (4.9%).
• Walking is the most practiced physical activity (45.7%), followed by riding a bicycle (14.1%) and running (6.5%).

Find the full results here

The study was financed by FINEP (Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos - Brazil).

In order to improve these active numbers it is in action the MOVE Brasil, a national campaign aiming to get more Brazilians moving by 2016.

Read more about the Move Brasil campaign here