A study released by the Health Improvement Commission has revealed that 44% of children met current recommended guidelines of an average of 60 minutes moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day.
Activity levels declined with age: 48% of Year 4 pupils and 40% of Year 6 pupils met the guidance.
There is a large gender gap in activity levels: 61% boys and 33% girls met the physical activity guidelines.
‘The results clearly show that while some children are sufficiently active to get the mental, physical and social benefits being active brings, there is a need to increase the amount of activity that young people can access throughout their day,’ said Alun Williams, the Health Improvement Commission’s Be Active Lead.
‘There are no silver bullets – a wide range of strategies to empower and enable children to be active from a young age are needed with particular focus ongetting and keeping more girls active.
‘This will only be achieved by thinking about physical activity as broadly as possible, from walking to school, active school lessons, active play and informal activity, high quality PE and sport.
‘It’s also so important to include young people themselves in identifying barriers to being active and possible solutions.
‘Collaborative action is needed from many different stakeholders, from parents and children themselves, to schools, the Health Improvement and The Sports Commissions, our politicians and policy makers and urban planners to name a few – many aims of the recently approved Activ8 Plan provide a platform to support this work.’
He said it was particular significance that the findings demonstrate that an increase of 15 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day would mean that approximately 70% of children would meet recommended guidelines.
‘The Health Improvement Commission, in partnership with the Guernsey Sports Commission, is now developing a new framework for a whole-school approach to physical activity which will be a critical part of improving children’s daily activity levels. ‘
Children did most of their weekday physical activity during school hours.
The study showed that 49% of children accumulated 30 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity during the school day with boys (66%) twice as likely to do this than girls (37%).
The Commission monitored the activity levels of primary school children using wearable technology.
302 Year 4 and Year 6 pupils from 6 schools volunteered to take part and wore a device called an ActiGraph for a week in Autumn 2019. ActiGraphs are small waist-worn accelerometers which estimate the amount, intensity and timing of a person’s physical activity.
The current (2019) UK Chief Medical Officer guidelines are that children and young people aged 5 to 18 should engage in moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity for an average of at least an hour per day across the week.
Vigorous intensity activities will make children breathe hard and fast.
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