Yoga can be seen as an accessible way to exercise and improve wellbeing. You don’t always need a gym membership, specialist machinery or other people to do it.

But in practice, yoga in the UK is easier for some people to access than others. It is increasingly being linked to NHS social prescribing, where people may be connected with health-promoting, non-clinical activities delivered by community and voluntary services. Yet what is available, accessible or affordable can differ from place to place. My research suggests that some of the people who could benefit most from yoga face barriers to taking part.

Available evidence suggests that yoga participation in the UK is strongly skewed towards a narrow demographic. Respondents to a 2020 survey of UK yoga students and teachers were 91% white, 71% university educated and 87% female. These figures sit uneasily beside yoga’s reputation as open to all.

Many of the people least represented in yoga also experience poorer health outcomes and face health inequalities: avoidable and unfair differences in health between different groups of people. If yoga is being used as part of public health and wellbeing services, we need to ask who can........

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