Why physical activity is every school’s business

Creating a habit of physical activity for life in school children is essential if we are to safeguard the health of future generations. ‘The inactivity time bomb,’ ‘The obesity epidemic,’ these phrases have been used to describe in a nutshell the health problems that the children of today will face in the future. They are catchy phrases, for sure, but I also think that they lack depth and may even distract from the real benefits that come from physical activity.
    
When we hear that the cost to the UK economy of physical inactivity is set to hit £50 billion by 2050 it is very easy to not pay attention because the figure is so vast, and involves so many people and organisations that it escapes reality. But this is a grave error to make and in fact for schools,
the physical activity levels of their pupils may be far more important than
would appear at first glance.

The current picture
Nearly ten per cent of children now enter primary school overweight and over double that number leave primary school either overweight or obese. We also know that positive behaviour established in early years will much more likely be continued into adolescence and adulthood.
    
Despite this, two studies published in August of this year disappointingly show that levels of physical activity among young people are plummeting. The first study, The Department of Culture Media and Sport’s ‘taking part survey’ showed a decline in the number of children involved in sport across all age groups over the past year. This was a huge a blow to the government’s pledge to “inspire a generation” after the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
    
The second study, BMJ Open’s ‘How active are our children?’ showed half of seven-year-olds are doing nowhere near enough exercise with only 51 per cent of children in the study meeting CMO guidelines. It is also clear that girls are far less active than boys (38 per cent and 63 per cent meeting the guidelines respectively).

Physical activity in schools
The UK currently sits in 3rd place in the table of the least active nations in Europe, but what should we be doing and why and where is it being done well already?
    
In a recent Smith Institute publication Baroness Sue Campbell, Chairman of UK Sport spoke frankly about sports provision in schools and questioned whether we attach the status to PE that it should have. She makes the case for sport, stating: “From the first years of a child’s life to a young adult’s first venture into the world of employment, sport has an unparalleled ability to aid development, boost learning and bring out the best in everyone. ”
    
Although the nature of core subjects means that naturally there can only be a select few, with physical activity having such an impact on health and wellbeing, it seems that there is a strong argument for it to be elevated to sit alongside other core subjects such as maths, English and science.
    
The Chief Medical Officer for England and Wales recommends that all children and young people should engage in moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity for at least 60 minutes and up to several hours every day. This isn’t to say that this should all take place in schools, but the wider benefits to schools of having physically active pupils should be a tempting reason for schools to make it a key focus.

Addressing obesity and increasing wellbeing
First and foremost is obesity. There are proven links between children being sedentary and being overweight or obese bringing with it all of the associated health problems in later life including chronic diseases such as type II diabetes and heart disease.
    
Despite this, around three in ten boys and girls (aged 2 to 15) are classed as either overweight or obese (31 per cent and 28 per cent respectively). To turn a blind eye to children’s long term health is dangerous. The damage this is doing to children’s health is clearly apparent as there has been a fourfold increase in the number of hospital admissions of children and teenagers for obesity related illnesses over the last decade. Although it is impossible to put a cost of sedentary lives and obesity on children’s wellbeing, self-esteem and confidence a figure that is worth bearing in mind is that the direct costs to the NHS of obesity related illnesses in children is now more than £4 billion per year.
    
The nutritional side of being healthy is becoming better understood and is an area in which we have seen encouraging progress. Schools are increasingly improving the food that they provide to their pupils and actively encourage them to have ‘five fruit and veg a day’. The Government has also announced plans to give every infant pupil a hot meal. In fact, the nutrition side of obesity is so vigorously addressed that it could actually risk neglecting the fitness side; this could lead to thousands of children who are within a healthy weight-range but who are unhealthily unfit.
    
As such, there is a need for a commitment to get children physically active, not just in timetabled lessons, but also at breaks and after schools with local sports clubs and facilities.
    
How many schools encourage their pupils to get off the bus one stop early to get them to walk more, for instance? Simple actions such as this can have tremendous benefits.

Improving academic achievement
Schools undoubtedly put great value on the health and wellbeing of their children, but they are primarily judged on their academic performance. This can put sport and physical activity down the pecking order when it comes to staff resources and time. But being active actually has a positive influence on children’s academic performance.
 
Although physical activity cannot be branded as a silver bullet to increase academic performance among every pupil, evidence shows that its numerous benefits on metabolism help children and teenagers to enhance their scholastic abilities.
    
Studies have shown that physical activity greatly increases cell growth within the brain, as well as elevating the levels of important hormones and chemicals that allows the brain to transmit messages with greater speed and efficacy. Furthermore, movement, in particular cardiovascular exercises are an essential factor in human development and health. For young people especially, regular exercise allows their brains and bodies to grow, heal, and become stronger.
    
This has been looked at in-depth in America and it has been shown that pupils who performed vigorous physical activity at a level that met or exceeded the US Healthy People 2010 guidelines achieved higher academic scores compared with the other pupils.
    
In short, physical activity helps children’s brains to develop, improves their general circulation and increases blood flow to the brain, all leading to greater attention spans, focus, and as a result, improved academic achievement.

Where is it being done well?
There are a number of examples of effective practice in schools but I want to highlight one in particular as it is such a simple, yet measureable initiative. Premier Sport’s ‘Golden Mile’ initiative encourages children to run, walk or jog 50 miles within school grounds. 700 schools took part in the last academic year with the top achieving school, Ardleigh Green Junior School, Hornchurch, completing 6,430 miles.
    
In terms of measureables, evaluation showed that there were improvements in attainment, behaviour at lunchtimes and health benefits. Furthermore, as many of the clubs are pre-school, children arrive early, which not only ensures they are at school on time, but also that they are wide awake and alert to learn in the classroom.

What next?
Of course, there are the constraints of staff resources, time and expertise but there are options available to schools, such as pooling resources with other schools in their area, to make this a reality.
    
As there are clear benefits to be gained to children’s health, wellbeing and academic achievement from being physically active it is essential for schools to encourage their pupils to be more active and reach the minimum levels set out by the Chief Medical Officer. It may not be a core curriculum subject, but it should be a core focus nevertheless. Hopefully, I have given enough context now to be able to say that if we don’t encourage children and young people to be more active then we really are sitting on an inactivity time bomb.

Further information
www.ukactive.com