HELP NEEDED PLEASE! Opinions and comments wanted :)

[BalaRoja]

Preface: I'm not a 20-25 year old female who doesn't cycle....

I'm a little older and a bit of a cycling maniac :-)

Cassie, I think you are asking a fascinating but incredibly complex question. Like most complex questions the answers & reasons why one thing happens (or doesn't) are multi-factorial and cannot be reduced to a few things.

A notable chunk of the North American (yes Canadians too) population is sedentary and has related health problems. I would think there is some continuity between the reasons that is having and the age group you mentioned as well. There are probably some specific reasons for not cycling among the population you stated (20-25 yr old women) but I suspect many of them are no different than why other populations don't cycle.

Why don't people cycle (or jog or walk, etc)? I'd say there are economic, social, psychological, and emotional reasons for that. Maybe for specific individuals there may be one clear-cut reason that predominates, but I think when looking at a large group of people, you'll find it varies considerably and usually involves several factors.

If I had to speculate, I'd look at 20-25 year olds in general - this being a prime college age group. College students are more indebted than ever, not coincidentally school is more expensive than ever, while job prospects aren't nearly as good. All of which makes for people working more, earning less, and consequently having less time. Then again, this is hardly limited to just 20-25 year olds..

Sounds like less quality of life to me and having ample time and resources to exercise is most definitely a quality of life metric imo...