ROME (ITALPRESS) – Physical inactivity is a growing phenomenon globally, rising from 26 percent of inactive people in 2010 to 31 percent in 2020. If the trend is not reversed, it is estimated to reach 35% in 2030. As for Italy, physical inactivity costs our country €1 billion a year, with a global impact that could exceed €300 billion globally in 2030. These are the figures emerging from the Aletheia report presented during the event “Food and Sport – A Perfect Combination for Health” at the Senate. In our country, despite the fact that 31.5 percent of adults are sedentary, there is a positive trend for participation in sports, with 57.7 percent of young people between the ages of 16 and 24 active and growth in the over-65s from 6.7 percent in 2003 to 16.4 percent in 2023. “If we do not invest in prevention, the national health care system will not be able to hold up in the long run. Sport is a powerful therapy for mental and physical well-being, and the attractiveness of champions is a lever that must be exploited. The culture of wellness and prevention are pillars on which the present but especially the future is based,” explained Health Minister Orazio Schillaci.
“Misinformation regarding food tends to destabilize the pillars of good living. Aletheia is rooted in free and autonomous research, scientific work, curated with great particularity by valuable professionals, and we will continue to work in this direction,” said the foundation’s president, Stefano Lucchini, while Aletheia’s scientific committee chairman, Antonio Gasbarrini, warned, “In our daily practice we see that something in the system has short-circuited. The Mediterranean diet is the best thing and there is no doubt about it, but we are no longer following it. There is a boom in non-natural foods that have pushed obesity, half of the kids take half of their daily calories from non-natural foods, bringing youth obesity in Italy to 10-15%. This results in everyone having one or more diseases by age 40.” As for novel foods, “we are excited, but their safety in the medium-term needs to be checked. First safety, then certainly they can enter the market. Otherwise, what we will ask is that in half of the foods in a supermarket it should be written ‘seriously harms health,’ as with cigarette packs.”
Also present was Senate President Ignazio La Russa, who stressed that the relationship between food and health is “an issue that touches everyone closely. Perhaps we don’t realize how lucky we are to live in Italy; in every part of the world the Italy-food connection is automatic. And then, woe betide not to do sports, it is good at any age to devote time to sports, I too promise to plug back into the exercise bike.”
– Photo press office Aletheia Foundation –
(ITALPRESS).
Aletheia report: physical inactivity costs Italy 1bn a year
