Almost half of all people in Dorset do not undertake enough exercise every week says Sport England

Figures from Sport England's Active Lives Survey found that only 63 per cent of people in the county get the recommended two and a half hours of moderate physical activity a week as recommended by the NHS between November 2016 and November 2017.

Moderate activity could include running, walking as well as cycling.

Alongside this, 25 per cent of the county's population are classed as "inactive" where they did not manage around half an hours exercise per week.

The most active place in the country was Exeter, where 77.4 per cent undertook the recommended two and a half hours of exercise a week while least active was Great Yarmouth, where just under half managed the recommended 150 minutes.

Nationally, people from higher socio-economic groups were much more likely to exercise regularly than poorer people while long-term unemployed people or those who had never worked were the most likely to be inactive.

The survey found walking was the most popular activity in England with 18.6 million people walking for leisure at least twice a month.

However, the number of people cycling and swimming were down but there was a significant increase of 518,000 more people doing interval training sessions, such as high-intensity interval training classes an increase on the previous year.

Jennie Price, Sport England's chief executive, said: "While the overall activity levels of the nation are stable, what people are choosing to do is moving with the times.

"The popularity of interval training shows the power of social media, and many older people are choosing to spend their leisure time in the great outdoors.

"The figures also show the huge importance of investing to tackle inactivity and the inequalities between different groups in society.

"It's why Sport England's 2017-21 strategy has, for the first time, allocated 25 per cent of its investment to tackling inactivity.

"This is a long-term task but it could not be more important."

Magdalene Mbanefo-Obi, deputy national lead for Adult Health and Wellbeing at Public Health England, added: “While millions are doing enough physical activity to stay healthy, too many of us still need to do more. Getting active can be simple – activities like walking briskly for 10 minutes each day can improve your health and lead to a better quality of life.

"Our One You campaign is helping adults to be more active and make healthy choices as part of their daily routine with tools like the Couch to 5k and Active 10 apps.

The Active Lives Survey is an annual questionnaire which asks people over the age of 16 in every local authority in England about how much sport and physical activity they do and covers the period between November 2016 and November 2017.