People shun swimming due to high entry fee

Faced with higher prices, more people are likely to drop swimming than gym workouts, finds a fascinating study.

Although experts agree that swimming is a great way of staying fit and healthy at any age, it is the individual activity that most people would drop if they faced higher prices, the findings showed.

"Among those surveyed there was a very clear understanding that physical activity is a means of getting healthy, losing weight and having fun," said Julia Fox-Rushby from Brunel University London.

"But, we have shown for the first time in England, that engaging in physical activity costs you real money and people make a trade-off between whether to go to a leisure centre and how much it would cost them," she pointed out.

The study included interviews with 1,683 people, 83 percent of whom took part in physical activity in some form.

It found that people facing 10 percent higher entry fees to swimming pools were 29 percent less active, once other variations such as their age and differences in income were taken into account.

A similar 10 percent higher price of a gym workout would hardly dent enthusiasm, with participation dropping by just three percent. In the case of brisk walking, the expected drop would be even less at two percent.

The study suggests that a policy of subsidising an individual activity such as swimming could be more effective than a blanket implementation on all forms of physical activity.