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FEATURE FOCUS: TACKLING STUDENT OBESITY


The wider benefits of getting young people active E


nsuring pupils are physically fit will help them to achieve more both in and out of


the classroom. But how do we engage young people to get them active and tackle rising student obesity? In the first of our Feature Focus pieces we hear from Ali Oliver, Chief Executive Officer at the Youth Sport Trust, who offers insight from her work at the national children’s charity.


The benefits of keeping young people


physically fit go way beyond getting in shape. There is strong academic and scientific evidence linking PE, sport and physical activity with good mental health and achievement. Our own programmes have evidenced how sport and physical activity can help young people to achieve more both in and out of the classroom. We want to ensure that young people are not just physically fit – but also mentally fit and healthy, setting them up with future leadership and life skills. Only 22% of children aged 5 to 15 in England


currently meet the Chief Medical Officer’s recommended 60 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous activity. This is a statistic we need to change, but to do so we need to firstly understand the socio-economic status of the least active groups of young people. Young people are especially likely to be inactive


if they: • Have a disability (People with a disability are half as likely to take part in sport for 30 minutes per week as those without a disability)


• Grow up in a disadvantaged area (47% of young people fell into the Health Survey for England’s ‘low activity category’)


• Come from a BAME background (55% of teenagers are less likely to take part in sport


32 www.education-today.co.uk


every week if they are from a Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic background)


• Are female (Only 8% of girls aged between 11 and 18 meet the Chief Medical Officer’s recommendation of 60 active minutes per day) The reality of a less active generation is


shocking - currently we are seeing that one in five children (20%) are obese by the final year of primary school. Rates of depression and anxiety among teenagers have also increased by 70% in the past 25 years. If we do not act now and help our young people to help themselves, their health and mental wellbeing will continue to decline, and they will be on a slippery slope to future health problems.


How can schools help? While it is important that schools’ roles in tackling obesity through activity is not treated in isolation to the wider role that Government/home influence must play, if we are to achieve change, we need to support schools to do all they can to make physical activity throughout the day the new norm for children.


Primary Schools We believe the key to tackling student obesity is giving children a love for movement from the very beginning. We need to encourage healthy active


April 2018


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