KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 8 — Over one in two Malaysian respondents told a survey they were less active amid movement control measures taken here and regionally to contain the spread of Covid-19

In a survey by market research firm Ipsos Malaysia, 56 per cent of Malaysian respondents were found to have done less physical activity while staying at home more, which was higher than in neighbouring countries.

In the September 18 to September 22 survey involving 3,000 adults aged at least 18 in six countries or 500 respondents per country, they were asked: "Since the beginning of the Covid crisis, how do you feel staying more at home has impacted your physical activity level?”

For Malaysia’s 500 respondents, nine per cent said they did no physical activities at all, while 47 per cent said they did less physical activity than usual, 28 per cent said there was no change, and 16 per cent said they did more physical activity than usual.

In terms of either doing less or no physical activity at all while staying at home, Malaysia was the worst performer with an overall 56 per cent of respondents falling under these two categories, compared to Singapore’s 55 per cent, the Philippines’ 53 per cent, Thailand’s 47 per cent, Vietnam and Indonesia both at 43 per cent.

For survey respondents who became more physically active than usual, Singapore’s 15 per cent was comparable to Malaysia’s 16 per cent, with the two falling behind their counterparts Thailand (20 per cent), Vietnam (21 per cent), Indonesia (22 per cent), and the Philippines (23 per cent).

In the same September survey, more Malaysian respondents appeared to have fared better than regional peers in terms of their mental wellbeing when spending more time stuck at home.

Asked the question "Since the beginning of the Covid crisis, how do you feel staying more at home have impacted your mental wellness?”, only 44 per cent of Malaysian respondents said they were negatively affected --- namely with 37 per cent saying they were feeling down "some of the time”, while seven per cent said they were feeling down "all the time”.

As for the rest of the Malaysian respondents, 47 per cent said there was no change to their mental wellness, while nine per cent said they were happier than before.

In terms of percentage of those being negatively affected emotionally or feeling down, Malaysians had the lowest overall percentage at 44 per cent, when compared against Indonesia’s 50 per cent, Vietnam’s 54 per cent, Thailand’s 56 per cent, Singapore’s 57 per cent and the Philippines’ 62 per cent.

Out of the all the six nations, Thailand stood out as having the highest percentage of respondents reporting that they were happier than before at 17 per cent, as compared to nine per cent (Malaysia, Philippines), eight per cent (Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore).

In an earlier survey by Ipsos conducted from July 24 to August 7 among 19,516 adults in 27 countries including 500 respondents in Malaysia, health and physical wellbeing was found to be a "key source to happiness in life” for Malaysians, the research firm said.

In the survey, 55 per cent of the 500 Malaysian respondents said health and physical wellbeing would bring the "greatest happiness” in their life, matching the global average of 55 per cent.

Amid a selected pool of nine countries whose results were provided by Ipsos, Malaysia came below Peru and India where 77 per cent and 57 per cent cite health and physical wellbeing as a key happiness source, but appeared to prize such factors more than respondents in US and Australia both at 43 per cent, UK and China both at 41 per cent, Japan (39 per cent) and Korea (37 per cent).