The news about children and young people and obesity can make for worrying reading.
3rd December 2024
In the first week of November, for example, paediatricians called for action as obesity levels among children starting their first year of school soared to nearly one in 10. What’s more, for those from the most deprived areas, obesity rates were more than double those for the least deprived regions.
Clearly, the two best ways of tackling the issue would be through diet and exercise for children and young people. Yet, earlier this autumn, research from UCL in London (the biggest study of its kind) found that UK toddlers get nearly 50% of their calories from ultra-processed foods, a figure which rose to more than half (59%) by the time of their seventh birthday, making it appear as though we still have some way to go as a country.
When it comes to physical activity, research published this summer by the Youth Sport Trust found that, in schools, this was worth between £4.5bn and £9bn in wellbeing benefits The report also revealed that free-to-access school sport and physical activity was most valuable to those who were least likely to have access to it elsewhere.
So doing all we can as a nation to improve the health and wellbeing of our children and young people via diet and exercise seems just to be common sense.
And not all the news on this subject area makes for grim reading. A recent report released by the School Health Research Network (SHRN), a joint project between Public Health Wales, the University of Cardiff and the Welsh Government, found that levels of physical activity among secondary school pupils in Wales was up, overturning a decline that had begun even pre-Covid, in 2017.
The survey questioned nearly 130,000 students in Years 7 to 11, at around 200 maintained secondary schools in Wales. It showed that almost a quarter (23%) of boys and 14% of girls met Chief Medical Officers’ national guidelines of completing a minimum of an hour’s exercise a day. These figures are up from 21% and 12% respectively (2021 figures).
But while those numbers are clearly good news, they still show that most pupils of secondary school age were still not meeting the recommended government guidelines for physical activity.
For this age group in particular, there are a number of benefits to using outdoor gyms in school to meet these physical activity targets, including:
At Fresh Air Fitness, we’re award-winning UK providers of high-quality, outdoor gym equipment across the UK. Many of our clients are educational institutions, including secondary schools.
Read about what we did for Sandhurst School in Berkshire, a secondary with around 1,000 pupils. In 2018, its senior management was looking for an innovative outdoor gym solution with a broad appeal to students, to go in an unused space at the school. A local leisure centre would also use the facility.
We visited the site and spoke to the school and recommended our Big Rig solution, with 16 user stations and myriad workout options suiting all ages and abilities. We fitted this with a smart-looking mulch surface meeting relevant European safety standards.
A year later, we were asked to expand this popular solution. So, in May 2020, we added, again with a mulch surface for consistency:
Ben Laws, assistant headteacher at Sandhurst, says dozens of pupils and others use the facility every day, with some staying behind after lessons to use the equipment rather than going home.
The school’s outdoor gym now has capacity for more than 20 users at a time, of all ages and abilities, with pupils and others using it throughout the school day and beyond. At the same time, users are building muscular strength and cardiovascular ability, alongside balance, flexibility and coordination.
Get in touch and learn more about what we could do to transform the fitness facilities at your school.
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