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High School: Physical Activity

Fewer than one quarter of U.S. high school students, 23.2%, were physically active for at least 60 minutes on a daily basis, according to the most recent Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) report. The YRBSS is a biannual measure of self-reported health behaviors among U.S. high school students released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The feature below includes national and state by state data on four questions related to physical activity. Other features on the site include additional data from YRBSS on nutrition behaviors and obesity rates.

Updated September 2020

United States 2021
Low Physical Education Participation
Did not attend physical education classes on one or more days (in an average week when they were in school)
Physical Activity
Were physically active at least 60 minutes per day on all seven days before the survey (doing any kind of physical activity that increased their heart rate and made them breathe hard)
High Computer Usage
Played video or computer games or used a computer three or more hours per day (for something that was not school work on an average school day)
High Television Watching
Watched three or more hours per day of television (on an average school day).

* Race/ethnicity data for individual states are not shown due to small sample sizes in the population. Note: The CDC uses the term Hispanic in their analysis. All races are non-Hispanic.

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