The UK Government is pouring millions into anti-obesity programmes to encourage both adults and children to exercise more. But official research suggests they are failing to work.
More than a third of school children spend less than two hours a week on sports, despite efforts to boost physical education. A study by the education watchdog Ofsted has found a �significant improvement� in teaching PE lessons under the sport partnership programme, launched in 2000 as a key element in government efforts to tackle childhood obesity.
But only 62 per cent of pupils in schools taking part in the programme are reaching the target of at least two hours on sport each week.
Meanwhile, national figures show that physical activity among adults is actually falling despite campaigns to boost fitness. A survey by the Office for National Statistics found that 2 in five Britons took no exercise at all in the four weeks before they were asked.
More worryingly, the proportion of adults taking part in some sport, game or physical activity during the previous 12 months fell from 75 per cent to 66 per cent between 2002 and 2003.
The figures come as no surprise to Dr Charmaine Griffiths of the British Heart Foundation. She says that only around one in three men and one in four women do the recommended amount of exercise of 30 minutes of moderate activity at least five times a week.
Children are not much better, with over a third not participating in the recommended hour of moderate intensity activity daily. Teenage girls are especially inactive, with only half doing the minimum,� Dr Griffiths says.
She adds: �Physical inactivity contributes to more than a third of all deaths from coronary heart disease (CHD), so it is vital that people get regular exercise. CHD is still Britain�s biggest killer, accounting for about 39% of deaths in the country.�
England�s Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, in his recent report At Least Five A Week, says that people who are physically active reduce the risk of developing CHD, stroke and type 2 diabetes by up to 50 per cent. They also cut the risk of dying prematurely by between 20 and 30 per cent.
He hopes his report will be �a wake-up call� that will change attitudes to active lifestyles in every household.
Being active is no longer simply an option,� he says. �It is essential if we are to live healthy and fulfilling lives into old age.�
Activity for all will be promoted in a new White Paper due out in October. Professor Rod Griffiths, president of the Faculty for Public Health hopes it will place a new duty on local authorities to draw up an activity strategy to encourage people to exercise more.
That, he says, could mean different decisions about things that have actually reduced opportunities for activity, like closing swimming pools and selling off playing fields.
He points out that society is increasingly mechanised, so people no longer burn up calories at work as they used to. But if there were more pestrianisation and park and ride schemes to encourage people to walk instead of drive, that would reduce carbon emissions as well as improve health. And he advocates more allotments to encourage people to grow their own food - which will be much fresher than anything bought from a shop.
http://www.norwichunion.com