How the pandemic affected lifestyle – health

According to a study, Germans spend too much time sitting, are becoming more and more lazy and cannot cope with stress adequately. Only every ninth citizen – a low since 2010 – leads an all-round healthy lifestyle in terms of diet, physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption and experiencing stress. This emerges from the DKV Report 2021, which the head of the study Ingo Froböse from the Sport University Cologne and the German health insurance company presented on Monday.

On behalf of the insurer, the university evaluated the data from around 2,800 representatively interviewed people aged 18 and over. The report, which has been produced for the sixth time since 2010, has uncovered several worrying negative records, said DKV CEO Clemens Muth.

This applies, for example, to the sitting times: Germans now spend an average of 8.5 hours on a chair or couch on workdays – one hour more than in 2018. Young adults up to the age of 29 are therefore even “world champions in seating” – with 10.5 hours on Working days. Working in the home office also played a part in this.

70 percent of those surveyed are physically active for more than 300 minutes a week. That sounds good at first, but in 2010 this figure was 83 percent. In contrast, almost every fifth person does not even follow the minimum recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO), which stipulates 150 to 300 minutes of exercise per week. This does not necessarily mean sport, moderate activities in everyday life such as brisk walking or gardening are also included.

However, the Corona period had a positive development: Almost every second person said they took more walks during the pandemic. According to Froböse, however, the trend is already declining again. Politicians “put sport in the corner” during the Corona crisis and presented it as dangerous with a view to the risk of infection. That was wrong and will leave its mark.

Women lead healthier lifestyles than men

Around 60 percent of those surveyed cannot find any ways to reduce or compensate for stress. This is the worst value so far, warned the sports scientist. The aggravations of the pandemic added to the stress, especially for women. “Women are more stressed than men,” explained Froböse, referring to childcare and homeschooling.

As in previous years, only just under half of Germans achieve a healthy diet – measured against the recommendations of the German Nutrition Society. Almost every fifth person drinks too much alcohol. Almost unchanged, almost a quarter of those surveyed use cigarettes.

Overall, women are more likely than men to lead healthy lives. 14 percent of them follow the recommendations in all areas. It is only nine percent of the men. The people with the healthiest behavior live in Saxony (18 percent), followed by Hamburg, Brandenburg and Rhineland-Palatinate / Saarland. Citizens in North Rhine-Westphalia, on the other hand, pay the least attention to a healthy lifestyle. Only seven percent adhere to all guidelines.

There is a noticeably wide gap between the values ​​collected and the self-assessment of the respondents: Currently, 61 percent still rate their state of health as good or very good. According to Muth, this blatant discrepancy is also evidence that many people are not sufficiently aware of a healthy lifestyle.

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