From the Department of Sports of Orihuela, we believe that sports and physical training should be considered essential and indispensable for the health of all citizens. Physical activity isn’t only a good tool to maintain and improve our health or something that has an impact on health savings, but it’s also useful and necessary to treat some diseases. Furthermore, sport is a sector that has helped to maintain economic activity with an impact of 3.3% on GDP and 2.1% on total employment. All these data according to the report "Termómetro del Ecosistema del Deporte en España", (Thermometer of the Sports Ecosystem in Spain), prepared by PwC and the Fundación España Activa, in 2018.

According to another report from the Health Alert and Emergency Coordination Centre, published on October 30th, 2020 (update No. 240): during the COVID-19 pandemic, only 0.34% of the cases occurred during sports activities.  

This scientific evidence suggests that playing sports regularly can significantly increase the immune response to vaccination (Edwards y Booy, 2013; Pascoe et al., 2014).

In summary, it’s essential that physical exercise is considered an important activity that is regulated in that line. We join the various initiatives that promote all this.

According to a 2016 study by the Spanish Agency for the Protection of Health in Sports (AEPSAD), the prevalence of some chronic diseases (hypertension, diabetes, depression, anxiety, etc.) is much higher in people who don’t do sports from 18 to 74 years old than people who do or play some sports.  

Maintaining a good physical condition, active muscles and a good cardiovascular level, in addition to what we’ve already said, is good for preventing and treating, for example, pain in the lower back (always under the supervision of a specialist).

Physical inactivity is the cause of about 35 chronic diseases (Booth et al., 2012). However, regular physical exercise improves the prognosis for 26 types of these diseases (Pedersen y Saltin, 2015).

In the study that we’ve already mentioned by the AEPSAD, it’s said that in Spain (with regard to physical inactivity on cardiovascular diseases, diabetes or colon or breast cancer) it can represent a cost of 990 million Euros. We could talk about losses of 2.5 billion Euros in the workplace due to physical inactivity (Aragonés et al., 2016).

We believe that preventive actions can represent important savings for our health system, therefore, we must invest in physical exercise.    

According to the report Termómetro del Ecosistema del Deporte en España, produced by PwC and Fundación España Activa, in 2018, the absolute employment generated by the sports industry in our country amounts to 414,000 jobs. In absolute terms, we can speak of 39.2 billion euros of revenue.

We can see how the sports industry can be an important engine of the economy in our country and, therefore, of the local development of all our municipalities.

Bibliography

Aragonés, M. T., Fernández, P. y Ley, V. (2016). Actividad física y prevalencia de patologías en la población española. Madrid Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte.

Booth, F. W., Roberts, C. K. y Laye, M. J. (2012). Lack of exercise is a major cause of chronic diseases. Comprehensive Physiology, 2(2), 1143-211.

Edwards, K. M. y Booy, R. (2013). Effects of exercise on vaccine-induced immune responses. Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, 9, 907–910.

Pascoe, A. R., Fiatarone, M. A. y Edwards, K. M. (2014). The effects of exercise on vaccination responses: a review of chronic and acute exercise interventions in humans. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 39, 33-41.

Pedersen, B. K. y Saltin, B. (2015). Exercise as medicine - evidence for prescribing exercise as therapy in 26 different chronic diseases. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 25 (suppl 3), 1-72.