Support for children to be active

Most UK children are not meeting the physical activity levels recommended by the UK Chief Medical Offer and the World Health Organization. We know that if children are physically active it can have positive impacts on their mental health and wellbeing, as well as their physical health, and that this can have longer-term effects by creating habits that last into adulthood.

Children’s physical activity levels tend to reduce as they go through Primary and Secondary school, so supporting children to be active from Primary school is a great opportunity to build healthy habits. There are also inequalities in children’s physical activity. Girls, children from more disadvantaged communities, and particular ethnic groups, tend to have lower activity levels.

New intervention approaches needed

Additionally, most physical activity interventions in schools to date have had limited success. We believe this is because they haven’t been flexible to individual schools and their unique characteristics. We urgently need to find new approaches to physical activity interventions, to support Primary schools to build an environment for pupils to be active.