In an age supposedly obsessed with taut stomachs and bulging biceps, surprisingly few people have embraced Britain's gym culture, according to a survey published today by The Observer in Body Uncovered magazine.
Overall, 43 per cent of British people take no exercise during an average week. Thirty-two per cent of those aged 16 to 24 fail to exercise but this grows to 41 per cent of 25-34s and continues to increase up the age scale.
Two in three people have never joined a gym and only 16 per cent hold membership of a gym. Just 7 per cent regularly, if ever, visit for a workout.
The poll, of 1,074 UK adults aged 16 and over, also reveals the full extent of the complex, contradictory and sometimes deeply unhappy ways in which British adults view their bodies.
The survey reveals interesting attitudes to obesity. Sixty-one per cent believe obese people are responsible for their own predicament and 35 per cent believe they should pay for any treatment they receive on the NHS.
Most people have failed to respond to the plethora of 'celebrity' diets on offer, such as the Atkins diet. Fifty-eight per cent say they have never followed a diet.
Of those who do follow diets to lose weight, many treat them as an alternative to exercise. More than one-third of all dieters fail to take regular exercise.
Despite the lack of effort people make over their appearance, they still value beauty highly, with the majority believing good looks breed success.
More than 50 per cent of those questioned maintain that physically attractive people are more likely to succeed at work, while two out of five adults think that beautiful people are happier than their plainer neighbours.
Young women are more likely to equate attractiveness with happiness, with 57 per cent of females in the 16- to 24-year-old age group believing the two to be inextricably linked.
This is, however, a myth scotched by those who should know best: adults who consider themselves to be most attractive - rating their looks as 9 and over on our scale of 1 to 10 - are among those least likely to believe that physical beauty is a key to personal happiness.
Despite making relatively little active effort to improve their looks, people nevertheless spend a great deal of time thinking about their appearance.
Men rather than women reveal themselves to be most image-conscious, with 44 per cent of men aged 16 to 44 admitting they are interested in their appearance, compared with just 41 per cent of women of the same age.
People are mildly disappointed with what they see in the mirror, giving themselves a mean score of 5.72 out of 10, but comfort themselves by valuing beauty almost at the bottom of the list of how they would like to be seen by others.
Almost half of those questioned claimed to prefer to be seen by others as kind and one in four preferred to be seen as intelligent. In contrast, just 16 per cent would most like to be thought of as attractive. And 94 per cent, across both sexes, have had their ears pierced.
