A new World Health Organization study on the welfare and health of young people has found that Israeli students exercise less after school hours than their counterparts in other countries.
The report, which surveyed students in 45 different countries, showed that 14.5% of Israeli students engage in less than 60 minutes of physical activity after school hours, placing the country at the bottom of the ranking.
In comparison, only 1.8% of students in Finland, which is ranked top, exercised less than 60 minutes a week. The European country is then followed by Kazakhstan and Switzerland, with 2.1% and 2.5%, respectively.
Only 12% of Israeli students reported that they exercised for an hour during the day, compared with 34.5% in Kazakhstan, 33.6% in Serbia, 31.3% in Macedonia and 30.1% in Finland.
The study surveyed 13,845 Israeli sixth, eighth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth-grade students in 323 schools in the Jewish and Arab sectors.
Only 21.1% of all students reported exercising at least 4 times a week outside of school hours.
In addition, Israel ranked only 42nd in the percentage of students who engage in physical activity every day.
The study findings show that boys exercise more than girls and that the number of students among the two sexes who are not physically active increases with age.
The study recommends children and youth aged 5–17 should accumulate at least 60 minutes of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity daily.
Following the findings, Education Minister Yoav Galant ordered ministry officials to devise a plan to instill proper exercise and eating habits among students.
"In the last 15 years, obesity among Israeli teens became one of the worst in the world, and so did prolonged sitting in front of screens and lack of movement and sports," Galant said. "We will reward students who lead a healthy lifestyle through grades."