Victoria is the most active state and women are leading the charge

VICTORIA has been declared Australia’s most active state, with more than half of all adults exercising. And there’s one gender that’s working out more than the other.

VICTORIA has been declared the nation’s most active state with women leading the charge.

Almost 54 per cent of Victorian adults spent time exercising in the past three months, shows new research.

The number was a 3 per cent increase from last year, equivalent to 209,000 extra Victorians breaking a sweat.

The next fittest state, Queensland, came in at 48 per cent of adults.

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Vivian Trieu, Tonia Tetoros and Adrienne Joe at Fitness Ring in Richmond. Picture: Andrew Tauber

The statistics also revealed that women are more likely than men to work up a sweat as people splash out more than $500 a year to get fit.

Australians aged 18-24 are the most physically active with 64.5 per cent of this age group regularly exercising.

The Medibank research also revealed exercise costs more than ever with the ­average spend on fitness jumping to $504 a year — up from $473 in 2017.

It also showed women were more willing to exercise than men — 51.4 cent of women said they worked out in the year to March 2018 compared with 50.3 per cent of men.

Medibank has been collecting the data since 2007 with the results showing that rates of physical activity have increased the most among those aged 60 and older.

Physical activity has jumped by 8.7 per cent among over-60s with 35 per cent of this age group now active.

Medibank chief medical officer Dr Linda Swan said costs stopped many from working out but there were free activities people could do such as walking and running.

“We know the main reasons why people don’t exercise is because they lack motivation, it’s expensive and they don’t find it successful … not everyone has a gym on the corner they can afford to go to,” Dr Swan said.

The statistics showed almost half of people are inactive with 50.9 per cent of Australians having exercised in the past three months.

But the situation has improved from 2007-2008 when only 44.4 per cent of people reported exercising recently.

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