Can the London 2012 Olympics ‘inspire a generation’ to do more physical or sporting activities?

An overview of systematic reviews

Article focus

Increased levels of physical activity are linked with improved health and may play a key role in the prevention or treatment of most noncommunicable diseases.

The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games aims to leave a long-term legacy, which includes population level increases in physical and sporting activity.

We conducted a systematic review of systematic reviews to establish whether hosting an Olympic games leads to increased participation in such activities.

Key messages

There is little evidence that international elite sporting events such as the Olympics leads to increased participation in physical or sporting activities at the population health level. We found no evidence, in particular, relating to the Paralympic games.

High-quality, evidence-based studies are needed to measure the true impact of the London 2012 games.

Strengths and limitations of this study

This is a systematic review of existing systematic reviews.

We restricted our search to those reviews published in English on previous Olympic and Paralympic games.

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