Today is the second in our eight part series looking at the eight Action Areas identified in the National Physical Activity Plan for Ireland.
The eight areas have been given 60 items on which progress will be measured and monitored so as to drive at a 1% annual increase in people meeting the national recommended physical activity guideline of 60 minutes for children and 30 minutes a day for adults, and to reduce by 0.5% a year the numbers of sedentary people who do not take any physical activity. The eight areas are:
- Public Awareness, Education and Communication
- Children and Young People
- Health
- Environment
- Workplaces
- Sport and physical activity in the community
- Research, Monitoring and Evaluation
- Implementation through partnership
Working to increase physical activity in Children will have the greatest overall impact on the health of the nation.
Breaking the habits of inactivity that have given rise to 34% of post primary school children getting no physical activity is crucial.
That one key number reduces by two thirds when it comes to adults but it is in establishing behaviour at as young an age as possible that the greatest benefit will derive.
The National Physical Activity Plan identifies a particular focus needed in areas of disadvantage through DEIS schools and through youth services.
It has also put a number on achieving a 500 school increase in the number partaking in the Active School Flag programme. That would be on top of the 600 currently in the scheme and has been set as a target to be reached by 2020.
That is an obvious way in which teachers, schools and children can identify simple ways to get moving in the normal course of school hours, the best way to achieve long term gain.
That could be through walking tracks around playgrounds, dance moves at certain times of the day that everybody gets involved with or a host of activities driven by the schools themselves based on local circumstances.
The Department of Education and Skills has accepted the challenge to fully implement a physical education curriculum, to evaluate the quality of teaching in this area and to develop and provide a programme of continuous professional development in physical education, all to happen between now and 2020.
A European study from 2013 revealed that the average number of hours of physical activity in primary schools was 37 here as opposed to 108 in France.
In secondary schools the levels of formal PE dropped off consistently through exam years with extra time given over to academic subjects. There is nothing wrong with that principle only that a better balance of physical and academic activity produces better results.
Join us tomorrow when we will be looking at the nine actions identified in health to put the National Physical Activity Plan into practice.
