Golden slumbers Does hosting the Olympics actually benefit us after the flame has gone out?

Does hosting an Olympics really improve our wellbeing? If so, by how much - and for how long? Are we really happier when Team GB win gold medals? And are the lofty claims of politicians that London 2012 would make us healthier born out by the facts?

- Sean Ingle

While the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was banging the drum for the capital hosting the Olympics in 2040 last week, academics at the LSE, Harvard and in Germany were answering these questions - and quietly busting a few myths about the legacy of 2012.

The starting point of their gold-plated research was a mammoth series of more than 26,000 interviews with residents of London, Paris and Berlin during the summers of 2011, 2012 and 2013. Not only did they know things like everyone's education level, marital status and income but, crucially, whether they exercised and how happy they felt, and how all this changed over time.

For their latest paper, Passing on the flame: Do mega sports events promote health behaviours? they focused on whether the Olympics encouraged London residents to exercise more. And, if so, did it stick?

The answers? A little. And a chastening no.

There was, the academics found, an increase in physical activity by six percentage points among the most inactive people in London - the 34% of residents who didn't usually exercise at all. Perhaps more surprisingly, there was also less alcohol and tobacco consumed by Londoners during the Games.