DAME KELLY HOLMES URGES KIDS TO GET UP FROM THE SOFA: “IF YOU SPEND YOUR LIVES ON THE SOFA, WE’VE SEEN THE END OF BRITISH WORLD RECORD PERFORMANCES.”
- The average child spends 3 hours 36 minutes watching TV PER DAY and 3 hours 29 minutes exercising PER WEEK, according to Sainsbury’s Active Kids study.
- Activity taken outside school hours has declined by 41 per cent in a single generation.
- Virtual activity on games consoles is replacing real activity in kids’ lives: “A workout for our thumbs just isn’t good enough,” says Dame Kelly Holmes.
Speaking at the launch of this year’s Sainsbury’s Active Kids programme today, Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes will urge kids to get off the sofa and spend more time exercising in order to improve their health, enhance their confidence and safeguard the future of British sport.
The Olympic Gold medallist’s comments come as Sainsbury’s research shows that the average child will spend a year and a half on the sofa between the ages of six and 16. Children spend more time watching TV per day than they do taking exercise per week.
Dame Kelly will say: “I’m deeply alarmed but not surprised at the news that today’s children are doing a lot less exercise than their parents did. There’s no doubt modern life is limiting the amount they do – whether it’s because of lifts to school or use of technology. Our kids need to learn the importance of exercise in leading fulfilling and healthy lives. They need to get up off the sofa.”
“We are justifiably proud of our sporting tradition in this country and it is really important that our kids continue this. A generation ago, it was easier for kids to be more active, but the world has changed. So we need to renew our efforts to help children gain the much-needed increase in physical activity.”
A national activity audit for the Sainsbury’s Active Kids campaign confirms that British Children are spending too much of their leisure time sitting down in front of the telly, the games console and the computer and not enough time exercising. The study found that kids spend more time in front of the TV, the PC and the games console in a day than they spend in active play over an entire week. Last week the Scout Association issued a similar warning about children’s activity levels.
In the course of a generation, the amount of exercise that children do has seen a dramatic and worrying decline. The average child today will do some kind of activity outside of school for 3 hours 29 minutes a week, versus 5 hours 52 minutes a generation ago, representing a decline in activity of 41 percent.
Dame Kelly Holmes comments: “Schools are doing a great job in promoting sports, but it is essential that children do activity after school and at home as well. What troubles me about these findings is that so many are spending too much time lying around rather than getting out and about learning new skills and having fun.”
An OFCOM study last year found that UK consumers now spend 50 hours per week on the phone, surfing the internet, watching television or listening to the radio. The average time spent watching TV was 3 hours and 36 minutes.
The report also found that the range of services and devices now available to children (8-15 year olds) in the UK is rapidly changing what they do with their time. More than three quarters of 11 year olds now have their own television, games console and mobile phone.
Dame Kelly adds: “Virtual action is fine in moderation but is not a replacement for real physical action. We owe it to our kids to get them off the sofa or out of their bedrooms and sprinting for a ball rather than hunting for the remote control. A workout for our thumbs just isn’t good enough.”
Launched three years ago, the Sainsbury’s Active Kids voucher programme has already generated more than £50 million in investment in sporting equipment for UK schools.
Sainsbury’s last commissioned research into children’s activity levels three years ago to coincide with the launch of the Active Kids programme. There has been a slight increase in activity levels since the initial research conducted three years ago. Based on today’s activity audit, children in 2008 are 16% more active than their counterparts in 2005.
Worryingly, though, one in 20 (6%) children do no exercise at all outside school, rising to nearly one in 10 girls (8%). London children are the most likely to do no activity at all – some 17% of London school kids are totally inactive outside of school. In London, 60% of children say that there is nowhere to go to exercise, or that they have to travel to get there. Urban children were generally more likely to cite the lack of local resources as the reason for a lack of exercise. Children from Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle are other key cities were more likely to say they had nowhere to go.
Nine in ten children (88%) said they would be more interested in keeping active if they had better sports and games equipment.Robert Crumbie, Active Kids manager said: “Sainsbury’s is proud to have contributed £52 million worth of sports and cooking equipment to UK schools, Scouts and Guide groups in just three years through our Active Kids programme. An active childhood is a great start to a healthy life and we will continue to do all that we can to support kids, families and schools in creating the conditions for a healthy upbringing.”
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About Active Kids
Sainsbury’s Active Kids is an in-store voucher collection scheme which encourages UK children to be more active and eat healthily.
Sainsbury’s Active Kids vouchers can then be donated to any UK school, Scout or Guide group participating in the scheme and redeemed for almost 1000 different pieces of exciting sports equipment – everything from space hoppers to skipping ropes as well as coaching in unusual activities like street-dance and taekwondo.
Vouchers can also be redeemed for over 50 different types of cooking equipment including bread-makers, steamers and woks as well as basics such as wooden spoons and chopping boards. In addition, Sainsbury’s has agreed partnerships with the Rugby Football Union, Premier Rugby, English Basketball and English Netball, so pupils can go and watch matches as a way to get inspired to do more sport.
But schools also have the option to collect their vouchers for ‘partner schools’ in developing countries, to donate specially selected packages of sports equipment through the Sainsbury’s “Active Kids Fund”.
Over 40,000 British schools, nurseries and Scout and Girl Guide groups are now registered to benefit from the Active Kids scheme, and since launch over £52m of sports and cooking equipment has been delivered. In 2007, every group that made an order received an average of £630 worth of equipment.
The Sainsbury’s Active Kids report
1383 parents of school-age children were surveyed across the UK in addition to over five hundred 8-15yr olds to build up a compelling “activity audit” of the nation both past and present in order to identify key trends & changing attitudes towards physical exercise.
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