The ukactive Summit – which has become the main gathering place for policymakers to discuss sport and fitness – took place this month in London.

The event saw a well-orchestrated strategic shift by ukactive away from a focus on combating obesity towards a new focus on battling inactivity, with all the key speakers highlighting the challenges we face in getting people active.

Just as the NHS has always been orientated towards illness rather than prevention, so the same reverse thinking has spilled into our sector, where we’ve been focusing on the effect of inactivity – obesity – rather than lobbying around the cause – sedentary lifestyle. It’s a seemingly small shift in focus, but a very important one.

Britain is in the grip of an inactivity crisis of enormous magnitude: Fred Turok, chair of ukactive, told delegates that physical activity levels have declined by 20 per cent in the last 50 years and are forecast to decline by a further 15 per cent by 2030. The financial costs associated with this are £10bn a year, and this will grow to around £50bn by 2050.

And the human cost is huge – there are 37,000 needless deaths each year from diseases associated with chronic inactivity, which shortens lifespan by an average of five years. Globally, it’s responsible for 17 per cent of premature deaths, making it the fourth greatest factor in mortality, according to the UN World Health Organisation.

Apparently we’re so lazy these days that by 2020, the average Briton will only use 25 per cent more energy than if they spent the entire time asleep in bed.

Clever parallels were drawn by Sir Keith Mills between the challenge of inactivity and the smoking lobby. He said once the government recognised smoking was a cause of death, it mobilised all its resources to combat the challenge, but it has taken 40 years to make a satisfactory difference. His message was that we need to dig in for the long term if we’re to achieve behaviour change and turn the tide.

So what should we be aiming for? Turok said ukactive’s ambition is a 1 per cent increase in activity levels year on year for the next five years, while Andy Burnham, MP – who spoke passionately about the importance of collaboration between political parties on this issue – said a target of 50 per cent of the UK population active by 2025 will be a cornerstone of Labour’s manifesto at the next election.