Encouraging children to get active, eat pizza and stay safe

Last weekend was spent with two sets of my grandchildren. I really enjoyed both visits. On the Saturday we had great fun making pizzas in my daughter’s new outdoor pizza oven. There is nothing quite like a freshly baked pizza, with a glass of wine, great company and sunshine, even if it means playing endless games of I-Spy. On the Sunday I was playing host to two more grandchildren. We went to the local park, which has an enormous children’s play area. Here the two boys played at showing just how little fear they have when it comes to climbing, swinging, running and sliding. Then it was on to the train ride for an enormous ice cream, before getting to the ‘rock’ concert. The boys, complete with blow up guitars alternated between playing along with the bands or racing around the stage on their scooters. 

What I had forgotten in my enthusiasm for having both sets of grandchildren over on the same weekend was just how much energy they have at that young age. I’m sure they were tired, but by the end of the weekend I was exhausted! Now I walk every day, usually 10 - 15km a day, but these little ones ran rings around me when it comes to being physically active. They never stopped.

As I lay in my post weekend Monday morning bed, I tweeted something about ‘getting up and getting going’ a message illustrated with a chicken atop of a spring. However, the reality was I was really feeling my age. I usually spend the first hour of each day playing catch up with my reading. Laying there feeling sorry for myself, the first story I came across was a report on whether parents know how much exercise their child needs to stay healthy. Apparently, a staggering two thirds of them don’t. The ‘official’ guidance from the NHS suggests that children aged 5 – 18 should do at least an hour of exercise every day, but 68% of UK adults didn’t know this or thought the target was lower (on average about 45 mins). 

In England, it’s reported that around 3 million children lead active lives. That’s under half the number of the child population. However, it’s a much smaller proportion of these children that actually achieve the recommended daily activity target. The data was collected from a survey conducted by YouGov on behalf of the Youth Sport Trust (YST). Their survey also showed that there was a decline in the time being given to children and young people’s physical education and physical activity. Data from Sport England showed that only 17.5% of children are achieving the 60-minute daily target. There was also a significant difference in the amount of exercise being undertaken depending on the child’s economic background. Nearly 40% of children and young people from the poorest families were doing less than 30 minutes of exercise a day compared with some 26% of children from middle class families.  

Last week schools across England were celebrating YST National School Sport Week, aimed at promoting the importance of regular exercise and the health and well being benefits it brings. One of the champions promoting the event was the remarkable Ben Smith. Way back in 2015/16 Ben ran 401 marathons in 401 days. In total he ran an incredible 10,506 miles, which if you want some perspective, it's the equivalent of running from London to Sydney! His run was to raise awareness of the impact that bullying at school has on an individual’s mental health and wellbeing. His own school experience of sports was not a good one.  

I can empathise with Ben’s experience. I hated sports at school and would do anything to get out of participating. I have never followed a football team, although the continuing success of the English Lionesses has captured my imagination. As a young person, I did take up archery (and once shot my bow and arrows in front of the Queen), and took up snooker, practising in smoke-filled snooker halls. I wasn’t really any good at either of these. However, by the time I reached my thirties, I had found a sport I could excel at, it was sport rock climbing. For the next 25 years it was something that I really enjoyed, although I never conquered Malham Cove. Sadly, creeping arthritis in my hands put paid to me continuing this sport into my 60s. The one thing I hated at school Physical Education (PE) lessons was swimming. The junior school I went to didn’t have its own swimming pool and once a week we were marched down to the local open-air municipal pool and given swimming lessons. We had to keep doing it until we passed our ‘Confidence Test’. I eventually passed mine by keeping at least one foot in contact with the bottom. I have hated water ever since. These days I only swim in pools where I can put my foot down and touch the bottom. Even today, I wouldn’t swim in the sea unless the same was true. 

Since 1994, swimming and water safety has been a statutory part of the UK national curriculum for PE. All children need to understand how to stay safe in and around water, and wherever possible, know how to swim. Unfortunately, only half of all primary schools in England provide the latter part of this curriculum (knowing how to swim). Unlike me, my grandchildren are confident swimmers, and know all there is to know about the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), an organisation that not only rescues those in peril at sea, but does so much in primary schools in terms of teaching water safety. However, and tragically, as I write this blog, one 12-year-old girl and two young men have died as a consequence of swimming in open water during the hot weather. Let’s encourage our children and young people to both become more active, eat lots of outdoor pizzas, and above all else, stay safe.