Sport Written by Chris Wright, head of wellbeing at the Youth Sport Trust
Using sport to tackle childhood obesity: Is it too much to digest? This year we have seen some bold statements focusing on food as childhood obesity’s biggest issue. Chris Wright, head of wellbeing at the Youth Sport Trust, discusses a renewed focus and the role sport can play In both the government’s Childhood Obesity Plan Chapter 2 and Ofsted’s thematic review of Obesity, Healthy Eating and Physical Activity published earlier this year, it is apparent there is a clear stance on food being the biggest issue. However, it is a common misconception that this is due to people eating more calories. Research in fact suggests that energy intake has declined since the 1970s, with fat content reducing in our food since the 1980s. Yet a third of children are overweight or obese as they leave primary school, and in our poorest communities the rate of clinical obesity is rising dramatically. So why the focus on food and what role does physical activity have to play? Exercise over extra fries Children around the world have stopped moving. We are simply not doing enough physical activity. As Professor John Ratey, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, states: “We are a species that is born to move such as our prehistoric fore fathers and inactivity is killing the human race.”
Physical inactivity is recognised as an important precursor of chronic ill-health but is something that we can take positive action against. Modifying behaviours from an early age and understanding those most in need of intervention is critical to young peoples’ physical, social and emotional wellbeing. Children that are inactive by the age of six have a higher risk of developing noncommunicable diseases. More significantly, for today’s generation of children, inactivity is also having an increased effect on their mood, increased stress, anxiety disorders, their general happiness and potential in life. What action can schools take? More money is being allocated to primary schools to help cut childhood obesity through the Primary PE and Sport Premium but if we do not support schools to spend the funding in the right way, it will be a wasted opportunity. So what action can schools take and what is in their gift to influence children’s healthy active lifestyle choices? Fundamentally, schools are there to educate and health education is part of this. Ofsted’s report outlines a very
clear position regarding this and in it Amanda Spielman states “education for health is essential and must be done well.” But this will not happen if schools are devoting time and energy to things in which they are neither expert nor likely to have an impact. There were key recommendations laid out in both reports that provide schools with a clear mandate to take positive action. More importantly, it is clear what the role of schools should be and how physical education, sport and healthy active lifestyle education are key drivers for children’s health. Fresh ideas By 2020, we want to see every primary school teacher professionally developed to help teach physical literacy with the same skill and passion as language literacy and numeracy. We know that for all the training a primary school teacher receives, they often get very little guidance on how to educate their pupils in and through movement, exercise and physical activity. We welcome the renewed focus on the 30-minute ambition and the mentioning E Volume 23.8 | EDUCATION BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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