In a recent report published by The Telegraph, results showed that British children are some of the least active in the world.
The research compared the activity levels of children in 38 countries across the world and put England, Wales and Scotland behind countries such as Ireland, Slovenia and the United Arab Emirates. The rating gave England and Wales a ‘D minus’ while Scotland landed joint bottom of the scale with an ‘F’.
The report showed that the situation has declined since a similar survey was published two years ago. This is bad news considering the Government has pledged to tackle child obesity. England has dropped from an overall grade for fitness from C-D to D minus, with four of the nine measures getting worse over the past two years.
It’s all well shouting doom and gloom so how can we use this report to make a proactive move forward. At Playforce we’ve been campaigning to combat childhood obesity as long as we can remember and it’s a difficult battle to win. We need to do a lot more than pledge to have ‘fewer’ obese children by 2026, as the August published obesity strategy suggested.
Introducing more physical activity to children from a young age is the perfect way to ensure we curb obesity from the start and we’re huge advocates of doing this through play. Happy, healthy children is our goal and by encouraging exercise through play, younger kids are more likely to associate getting outside and active with having fun.
Don’t just take our word for it, we’ve done our fair share of research on the concept. If you want to find out more about our own studies into child obesity and how we can tackle it, you might be interested in reading the articles below…
Healthy Children Whitepaper
Healthy Children 2016 Updates
Combatting Childhood Obesity Whitepaper
To find out how you can introduce more outdoor play and physical activity into your school to help combat childhood obesity from the start, book a consultation with one of our local advisors.