PM Modi beats Baba Ramdev, Akshay Kumar to become India’s top fitness influencer: Report

Who is India’s top fitness influencer? In case you are thinking about some celebrity health instructor or celebrity, you are wrong! It is none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been named as top fitness influencer, preventive healthcare ecosystem GOQii said. The Prime Minister has beaten Baba Ramdev and Bollywood star Akshay Kumar to emerge on top spot. According to GOQii’s official site, the data was collected primarily throughout the month of January to March 2019.

“The top 30 health and fitness influencers have been derived from the list of 100 names that the GOQii staffers, players and ambassadors nominated. A scoring system was created based on the following categories: Followers on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube; Number of Google news mentions; And an estimate of how much each person's career focuses on fitness and health,” GOQii said on the site.

GOQii had earlier released the GOQii India Fit Report that found, in an unaided survey, that 75% respondents named Akshay Kumar and Baba Ramdev as someone they would trust for health advice. The team undertook further surveys and research to reveal other influencers whom people look up to when it comes to health and fitness.

The ranking is as following: Narendra Modi, Akshay Kumar, Baba Ramdev, Virat Kohli, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh, Kareena Kapoor, Tiger Shroff, Priyanka Chopra, Shilpa Shetty, Jacqueline Fernandez, Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, Sunil Chhetri Sardara Singh, Milind Soman, Ranveer Allahbadia, Abhinav Mahajan, Jeet Selal, Luke Coutinho, Dr Ashish Contractor, Sanjeev Kapoor, Mithali Raj, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Mandira Bedi, Mary Kom, Kuntal Joisher, Divyanshu Ganatra and Dr Naresh Trehan.

PM Modi is credited for World Yoga Day. June 21 was designated World Yoga Day on PM Modi's suggestion in his speech at the UN General Assembly in 2014, months after he was first elected to office. Since then, the government marks the day in a big way with thousands participating in mass Yoga events across the country.