Can joining clubs make you more physically active?

A new study using information from BCS70 has shown that people who take part in clubs and societies throughout their lives tend to walk and exercise more in their mid-40s.

What we asked you 

When you were 16, we asked you if you belonged to the Scouts, Girl Guides or any other uniformed youth organisation. At ages 30, 34 and 42, you told us about any sports clubs, community groups, societies or other structured social activities you took part in.  

As part of our health-focused survey in your mid-40s, lots of you agreed to wear an activity monitor for a week.  

What the research found 

Over the years, the proportion of your generation taking part in clubs and societies has fluctuated, perhaps because of work and family commitments. For example, just under half of you attended clubs and societies in your mid-teens, but at age 30 less than a third of you did this. Rates of participation in this sort of activity increased to just over half at age 34 and then peaked at three in five at age 42. 

A research team, led by UCL, analysed this information along with the data collected by the activity monitors. They discovered that those of you who had been involved in clubs, societies and similar activities the most across the years tended to be more physically active at age 46 than those who had never done this.  

If you had reported taking part in these sorts of activities at three different ages over the years, then you notched up 6% more daily steps on average and spent just over 30 minutes longer exercising per week at age 46, compared to those who had not.  

Why this research matters

These results from BCS70 suggest that participating in clubs, societies and other organised social activities throughout your life can benefit your physical health as you get older. This evidence could be especially relevant to NHS and other social prescribing schemes which connect people to different community activities to support health and wellbeing.  

Lead author, Stella Tsoli, said: “Many studies have shown how staying socially connected can help people’s mental health and wellbeing. Using objective data collected from activity monitors, our new research is one of the first to highlight just how valuable social participation can be for people’s physical health.”

“We find that sustaining social connections encourages healthier lifestyles in midlife. As a result, staying social could be a vitally important lever for healthy ageing.”  

Lead author, Stella Tsoli

Read the full research report

Life-course social participation and physical activity in midlife: longitudinal associations in the 1970 British Cohort Study by Stella Tsoli, Daisy Fancourt, Alice Sullivan, Mark Hamer, George B. Ploubidis & Ichiro Kawachi was published in March 2024 in the European Journal of Epidemiology website.