Global study on walking puts Hong Kong a step ahead

Hongkongers walk an average of 6,880 steps a day, making them the most active in the world, a study has found.

The Stanford University survey ranked Indonesia last out of 46 countries and regions with only 3,513 steps a day, compared with a world average of 4,961.

Reseachers collected over 68 million days’ worth of minute-by-minute data from over 717,527 users of the iPhone app Argus. Mainland China came second with 6,189 steps followed by Ukraine on 6,107.

The Stanford study also found that reducing the gap between the least and most active people in a country or region –what is called activity inequality – could reduce obesity levels. Individuals in five countries with the highest activity inequality were 196 per cent more likely to be obese than those in the five with the lowest inequality.

Saudi Arabia had the highest activity inequality rate (32.5), followed by Australia (30.4), Canada (30.3) and the US (30.3). Hong Kong had the lowest activity inequality rate of 22.2.