The FINANCIAL — Most Americans agree on the importance of exercise and do at least some exercising every week.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 75% of American Adults say exercise is at least somewhat important in daily life, including 33% who say it's Very Important. Just 22% rate daily exercise as not very or not at all important.
That closely parallels the 20% of Americans who say they never exercise, the highest level in five years. A plurality (47%) say they exercise one to three times per week, while 19% exercise four to five times a week. Ten percent (10%) of Adults say they exercise every day or nearly every day.
Most adults have consistently said exercise is important in daily life in surveys since 2006.
Most Americans continue to give their personal health positive ratings, but they are slightly less optimistic about their health in the future.
Of those who exercise at least one to three times a week, the majority (79%) say their workouts are between 15 minutes and an hour. Twelve percent (12%) say their workouts typically last less than 15 minutes, and nine percent (9%) usually work out for more than an hour.
Perhaps not surprisingly, those who exercise the most frequently also exercise the longest. Those who exercise more are also more likely to say exercise is Very Important in daily life.
Eighty percent (80%) of all adults agree that exercise can make you a healthy person, although that is the lowest finding since surveying on the question began.
In 2009, 39% of adults agreed that health care costs will not come down until Americans change their lifestyle, and 30% favored making overweight government workers pay more for their health insurance.
Just 35% of Americans think they are overweight. But a majority (58%) have at some point in their life been on a diet to lose weight.
