Deputy Sports Minister Piotr Borys announced the plan during a meeting in the northern port city of Gdynia held as part of public consultations on the Strategy for the Development of Polish Sport, state news agency PAP reported.
Borys said the government aims to link broader participation in sport with preventive healthcare, while also improving Poland’s international sporting performance.
“We want to build national pride through results—through more effective competition by Polish athletes on the international stage, including at the Olympic Games—while at the same time investing in the health of our citizens,” Borys said.
He said the strategy would be closely tied to Poland’s bid to host the 2040 Olympic Games.
Citing government data, Borys said about 30 percent of Polish children lead sedentary lives, while 94 percent lack basic movement skills.
He said reversing those trends would require what he described as a "movement revolution." The focus, he said, should be on children ages 3 to 9, teaching them healthy habits that will benefit them throughout their lives.
Similar changes are also needed among adults, about 30 percent of whom are physically inactive, he added.
By contrast, Borys said, around 80 percent of people in Nordic countries are physically active.
“When it comes to health outcomes, we could save about PLN 9 billion (EUR 2.1 billion, USD 2.5 billion) simply by being active and investing in physical fitness,” he said.
Borys said work on the new strategy will continue over the next year, with consultations involving sports experts, local governments, the military and other stakeholders. The government is expected to adopt the strategy in early 2027.
He warned that without physical activity, more than 35 percent of Poles could be obese within a decade, noting that obesity is linked to more than 70 diseases.
"There is no healthy society without physical fitness," Borys said. "If we are not physically active and do not take care of ourselves, we will live shorter lives."
He added that broader participation in sport would also translate into stronger elite performance, saying that while "talent is born everywhere," it will not be discovered unless sport is widely accessible.
As an example, Borys pointed to the Netherlands, where about 80 percent of the population is physically active and which won 34 medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Poland, with roughly twice the population, won 10 medals, he said.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP