Oh No! New York State’s Teens are Among the Laziest in America

The keys to a healthy lifestyle are pretty generic: eat healthy, get enough sleep, and of course, get off the couch and get some physical exercise as much as possible.

While we're not sure about the sleep or the diet of New Yorkers (yet), some concerning statistics have come out about the physical fitness of Empire State residents, and specifically, teenagers in New York.

So, just how lazy are the teenagers of New York?

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New York Teens Are Among the Laziest in America

ABC News 10 published a study, which used data from the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System to rank which state had the most, and least active teenagers in the United States. The study listed four columns of data: percentage of teens who exercise seven days a week, 5+ days a week, zero days a week, and a column for percentage of teens who play on a sports team.

Based on this criteria, here is how New York teens rank in 44 of the 50 U.S. states:

• Teens who exercise seven days a week: 19.2% (41 of 44 listed)
• Teens who exercise 5+ days a week: 38.7% (T-36 of 44 listed)
• Teens who exercise zero days a week: 20% (T-10 of 44 listed)
• Teens who play on a sports team: N/A (not listed)

Those numbers are, in a word, low. How does New York compare to other states, and the country as a whole, though?

How Do New York's Teens Stack Up Against the Rest of the Country?

According to the same report, South Dakota has the most teens that claim they work out seven days a week, with a percentage closing in on 30%. Illinois, meanwhile has over 50% of their teens saying they work out five, or more, days per week. What's more, over a quarter of Louisiana's kids say they don't work out at all.

Nationwide, an estimated 17% of kids don't exercise at all, while 44.1% say they were active five or more days per week. So, New York has less kids who don't work out at all, but less who are consistently physically fit.

Will a drop in COVID-19 cases lead to more New Yorkers being active? There's hope, but then again, there's much more to inside nowadays, so these numbers could continue to drop instead.