Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate his Department has made of the proportion of deaths linked to physical inactivity in the UK.

There are no official published statistics on deaths linked to physical inactivity in the United Kingdom.

Statistics on deaths from specific causes are based on the medical causes of death recorded on a death certificate, which are coded using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Although physical inactivity is included within the ICD, classified under lack of physical exercise, it is rarely coded as a cause of death.

Estimates of the number of deaths due to some factors that influence mortality but which are not always stated as a cause of death, such as smoking, can be made. However, there is no agreed definition of a physical inactivity-related death for use within the Government, and no official statistics on potential numbers.