Less than one third of the Chinese population engages in regular physical exercise, a survey showed yesterday.

The survey, released by China's State General Administration of Sport, said a little more than 28 percent of China's 1.3 billion people took part in physical exercise at least three times a week, with a minimum duration of 30 minutes.

In the picture taken on December 16, 2008 students of the Wanghan School in Mianzhu, Sichuan Province, take part in the winter sports meeting organized by the school. [Photo from Xinhua]

"Despite the fact that there were millions of people exercising regularly, they did not exercise frequently enough," said Sheng Zhiguo, the head of the Sport for All Department which sponsored the survey.

"One must exercise regularly to benefit from it."

Seniors exercised more than young people, the survey showed. Around 10 percent of people aged 50 to 69 carried out regular exercise, while just 6 percent of people aged 20 to 39 did the same.

"Now the tempo of life has become so much faster and the pressure is mounting, many people spend so much time working they hardly find time to exercise," Sheng said.

Among those who took regular physical exercise, 62 percent said brisk walking or jogging was their major exercise, followed by table tennis, badminton, and tennis. For teenagers, jogging and ball games were the favorite activities.

More than half of the respondents exercised within 1 kilometer of their homes.

"More people are able to exercise near home, as the number of community exercise facilities has increased in recent years," Sheng said.

Lack of sports facilities, however, still remained a big problem, Sheng said.

"People's needs increase faster than we can build sports facilities," he said.

"But the government can not solve all the problems alone. Social sectors should join in the 'Sport for All' campaign," Sheng said.

Before the Beijing Olympic Games, the Beijing government organized a community table tennis competition in which 750,000 Beijing residents registered to participate. But such activities were rare. Xing Wenhua, a professor from Beijing Sport University, said communities should be the basic unit to promote sport among ordinary people.

"The power of the government to promote sport for all is limited. Socialization is a must. We need private clubs and communities to do the job if we want more people to take part," he said.