"After a whole day of work I don't want to speak; never mind exercise," responded one young adult in a survey conducted by the health department in Wuhan, Hubei province.

One of the side effects of the skyrocketing house prices in the big cities is that more young adults reside in suburban areas because they cannot afford inner city rents. The same survey by zhaopin.com shows that working people in Beijing, for example, spend almost three hours a day commuting to and from work.

Students are also often too busy to exercise due to curriculum overload. On May 16 this year, a 20-year-old male student at the South China University of Technology died after running 1,000 meters in a physical test and lack of exercises was said to have contributed to the tragedy. The study overload seems to be spreading to primary schools. In Beijing, the obesity rate of pupils increased to 20.74 percent in 2011, the highest in history.

Still many young people are more interested in being online rather than in a fitness center. An article in the People's Daily two months ago even described the youths as "unenergetic" and "gloomy".

The General Administration of Sport is editing the national standards on exercise so that they will cover all groups aged from 6 to 69. These will vary according to age, but they will pay special attention to the young people's fitness and will take new measures to improve their physical condition.

That is a good move, but the problem cannot be solved by the sports administration alone. We hope more sides, including government agencies and people themselves, will assume the responsibility of staying fit.

The author is a writer with China Daily. [email protected]