Socioeconomic environment, availability of sports facilities, and jogging, swimming and gym use

The aim of the study was to evaluate the association of the availability of sports facilities and socioeconomic environment with jogging, swimming and gym use in Spain. The indicators of availability of sports facilities were the number of swimming pools and the number of gyms per 10,000 population. The indicators of socioeconomic environment were average provincial income and provincial unemployment rate. The number of sports facilities was not related with either swimming or gym use and the indicators of socioeconomic environment were not associated with swimming in either sex, or with gym use in men. The findings of this study do not support the hypotheses proposed in previous investigations to explain the consistent relation between socioeconomic environment and lack of physical activity. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.