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Stars back school sports bid to fight obesity
Ministers were last night under pressure to increase dramatically the amount of
sport children play at school to combat the growing epidemic of childhood
obesity.
Sports stars, health experts and education leaders gave their backing to a major
new Observer campaign to ensure that pupils get more physical exercise.
With obesity rapidly overtaking smoking as Britain's single biggest cause of
disease and premature death, experts say the need for children to remain active
and energetic has never been greater. Although the Government recommends that
every pupil does at least two hours of sport at school per week, barely a third
do so.
The Observer today calls on the Government to show it is serious about
protecting the health of children by helping schools and teachers to offer more
sport. It argues that all children in Britain should be receiving the
recommended two hours a week by 2006. The Government's target is a more modest
75 per cent within three years.
Schools should be able to call on outside coaches and fitness instructors to
help them run activities; retired sporting figures should be brought back to
pass on their skills to a new generation.
To make sport more appealing, the range of activities on offer should be
extended to include dance, skateboarding, orienteering and other activities
which increase the heart rate.
Education Secretary Charles Clarke welcomed The Observer's focus on school sport
and admitted that the Government is keen to see far more being done to revive
physical education.
'Sport is central to what schools do. But sport wasn't given the priority it
needs in the 1980s, so we have some way to go. We are making progress although
we'd all like it to be faster,' he added.
'We're putting the investment in and we're working with schools and
organisations like Sport England to turn it round. The signs are encouraging,
but we do have to push even harder.'
Clarke, who privately admits the Government needs new thinking on the subject,
will study The Observer's proposals.
Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson said last night: 'Higher levels of
physical activity among children and young people, together with much healthier
eating patterns, are the key to averting the potential catastrophic effects of
the obesity epidemic which is beginning to emerge.'
Athletics heroine Paula Radcliffe said she welcomed anything which helped to
increase young people's access to sport. 'School sport is very, very important.
It's vital to get kids active at school and give them as many opportunities as
possible to take part in sport. Every young person in Britain should have the
same chance to do sport as I had when I was growing up.'
Trevor Sinclair, the England and Manchester City winger, said: 'Any campaign
which encourages more sport to be played at school has my full support. Sport
helps pupils let off steam outside the classroom and represents an introduction
to physical exercise, which is important to maintain through life.
'Anything more the Government can do in this vital area would be welcome.'
Dr Vivienne Nathanson, head of science and ethics at the British Medical
Association, said she strongly supported the campaign. 'The BMA would like
children to be given the chance to find a sport which they enjoy and are good at
so that they pursue this into adult life.'
Professor Philip James, head of the International Obesity Taskforce, who first
began to warn about the impending epidemic in Britain, said: 'School sports is
completely fundamental to the health of children. We have systematically lost
this over the past 15 years, and children are beginning to lose their
understanding of how to even play sports.'
The main teaching unions, representing tens of thousands of staff, said the
campaign offered a vital opportunity to win children improved sports facilities
and greater support to improve fitness levels.
Eamonn O'Kane, leader of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of
Women Teachers, and David Hart, general-secretary of the National Association of
Head Teachers, said that confronting the problem should be made a national
priority.