Good news stories about the benefits of sport
Most recent findings about children and physical activity are negative. The context is that children are getting fatter, aerobic fitness is declining and physical activity is decreasing. Nevertheless, sport and physical activity are still highly valued by both children and parents. A large minority of children maintain high levels of physical activity, in spite of living in an environment that is increasingly ‘toxic for exercise’. Furthermore, a substantial number of children combine high levels of physical activity with high levels of social activity.
The context: fitness, fatness and physical activity
About 20–25 per cent of Australian children are overweight or obese, and the proportion is increasing at an accelerating rate, particularly since the mid-1980s — a trend that reflects international patterns. At the same time, the aerobic fitness of children has taken a sharp downward turn since 1970–80, trending downwards at about 0.4 per cent per annum. This is again in line with international trends. Increasing fatness and decreasing fitness appear to be associated not with increased energy intake, but rather with declines in physical activity. There has been a fall in participation in organised club and school sports, decreases in active transport, failure to reach physical education targets, and changes in the built environment (such as reduced open space, more arterial roads and disintegration of community focal points) that have created an environment which is ‘toxic’ for exercise.
Children and parents value sport and physical activity
In spite of this context, sport has been consistently ranked in the top three preferred leisure-time activities for Australian boys and girls over the last 50 years. Attitudes towards physical education, physical activity and school sport have been consistently positive since 1985. Very few children (under 6 per cent) say that they ‘are not into sport’, and a similar percentage avoid sport out of fear of injury. In response to the Multimedia Activity Recall for Children and Adolescents psychosocial questionnaire, only 19 per cent of girls and 6 per cent of boys said that they would prefer to use two hours of free time for ‘quiet’ as opposed to ‘active’ or ‘mixed’ activities.
Sport is generally perceived by young people as being a way of building and solidifying friendship networks, improving skills and achieving physical fitness
A major motivating factor for girls was socialising. In interviews, girls mentioned doing activities with friends and families, enjoying the sense of being part of a team. In rural areas in particular, attitudes towards sport are very positive and sport is seen as a kind of ‘community cement’. The positive community attitudes towards sport are justified by research, which finds physical activity to be associated with reductions in the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, diabetes, peripheral vascular disease, some forms of cancer, osteoporosis, and some mental disturbances. Physical activity also improves quality of life and is associated with reduced antisocial behaviour among young people. A range of economic analyses shows that promotion of physical activity is 2–25 times more cost effective as either primary health care approaches to certain behaviours (for example, smoking), or secondary care approaches. In addition, each extra hour of sport reduces screen time by 20–24 minutes.
Some children maintain high levels of physical activity
Young children have a natural drive to play, which is shared by other mammalian species. With the right permissive environment, children can achieve very high levels of physical activity. One-quarter of boys spend more than 110 minutes per day on average playing sport. For girls, the figure is 65 minutes per day. This can represent 30–40 per cent of a child’s total daily energy expenditure. If such substantial minorities can achieve this level of physical activity, it would seem possible that other children can too. If we succeeded in raising the average amount of sport played to the current level played by the most active 25 per cent, we would increase average daily energy expenditure by 10–22 per cent, which equates to a relative loss of six kilograms of body weight each year.
Children can combine high levels of physical activity with social and academic activity
There is no evidence of high levels of physical activity impairing academic performance. Interventions at Vanves in the 1950s, Trois–Rivières in the 1970s, and South Australia in the 1980s found that when large slices of the school day were taken away from academic subjects and devoted to physical education, academic performance was unchanged or improved. There is persuasive evidence that acute and chronic exposure to physical activity improves cognitive function in both able-bodied and disabled children, and there are positive correlations between levels of physical activity and academic performance.
Sport can be successfully combined with a range of other leisure pursuits
About one-third of boys fall into an activity cluster labelled ‘sporties’ or ‘techno-actives’. These boys combine high levels of sports participation (118 minutes per day as opposed to 33 minutes per day for other boys) with above-average levels of screen time. About one-quarter of girls are labelled ‘players’, and combine very high levels of informal physical activity (140 versus 80 minutes per day) with large amounts of low-level social activity (chores, schoolwork, etc.). In face-to-face interviews, it was striking how busy children were and how much they enjoyed being active.
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