“There are brilliant people out there, but there are also organisations who feel they need to own the evidence, control the narrative and protect their position”
Where it all started Watt’s journey into wellbeing economics began at the Join In Trust, the Olympic legacy project set up to boost volunteering in grassroots sport. Asked to estimate the economic value of volunteering, he calculated the contribution to the UK economy of sports volunteers alone to be around £55bn annually – a figure he initially expected to face scepticism. Instead, his analysis aligned closely with that of the Bank of England which, just two weeks prior, had announced that volunteering across the wider economy contributed a value of around £200bn – using similar methodology to Watt’s. It was a lightbulb moment for Watt, who realised there was “a whole field here, a whole set of data, that no-one in sport was using”. He adds: “It was a massive opportunity to improve the evidence base for small organisations.” State of Life was born from this realisation, its model focused on comparing wellbeing and health outcomes of people participating in activities with statistically similar individuals not participating. Using these control groups – as well as national datasets – it becomes
possible to isolate the impact of many different forms of community participation, from volunteering to attending church, Girl Guiding to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme, to taking part in physical activity and more. This is where the sport and fitness sector has traditionally fallen short, explains Watt: “The NHS uses comparison groups as standard, but the activity sector has been making huge claims based on assumptions and estimates rather than evidence.” Slow progress to date This reliance on claims that aren’t systematically tested is one of the activity sector‘s greatest weaknesses, Watt continues. “If we say we’re improving people’s health, then we need to ask them – and compare them to those who are not active and not getting our ‘treatment’.” The evidence we need should surely follow, with research consistently showing that activities combining purpose, social connection and routine deliver particularly strong wellbeing benefits. Described by Watt as “weekly purposeful endeavours”, such activities might include playing sport, volunteering, attending a community group or going to the gym.
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STATE OF THE UK FITNESS INDUSTRY REPORT 2026
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