Could do better: Youth exercise levels score a D minus

Ireland has received a ‘D minus’ on an international scale measuring physical activity levels in youngsters.

The same grade was handed down for our performance when it comes to physical education (PE).

Despite the poor showing, Ireland still ranks in the middle on the global matrix of report card grades measuring physical activity in 15 countries.

An analysis of data looking at our physical activity levels (published between 2003 and 2013) informed grades and showed between 12% and 43% of children do enough physical activity.

Scotland fared worse, scoring an F, while developing countries came up tops, with the highest grade, a B, awarded to Mozambique.

Dr Deirdre Harrington, who developed the Physical Activity Report Card in Children and Youth over the past year, said while the research had not looked at the reasons why some countries were doing better than others, one could “hypothesise” that more sedentary behaviour in developed countries played a part.

“It could be to do with access to facilities, it could be cultural, we have to really sit down and talk about it,” said Dr Harrington, a lecturer in physical activity, at the University of Leicester and formerly of the University of Limerick.

The plan going forward, using the first report card as a baseline, would be to monitor certain behaviours and settings known to influence how active children are, she said. These would include television viewing, sports participation, active transportation, active play, and doing PE.

Dr Sarahjane Belton, a lecturer in PE at Dublin City University and member of the team who developed the report card, said there was concern that the planned removal of PE as a subject from the junior cycle curriculum would affect our grade in the future and this was something “the Government should address”.

Another member of the team, Dr Tara Coppinger, a lecturer at Cork Institute of Technology, said they had embarked on a project in partnership with a health board in New Zealand designed to improve the quality and quantity of physical activity, as well as nutritional habits, of children aged 7 and 8 in four primary schools in Cork.

Dr Coppinger said through the wider implementation of Project Spraoi, “we aim to help improve the school and overall physical activity grades in the future”.

The Departments of Health and Sport are working on a national physical activity plan.

Health Minister James Reilly said the aim was “to create a shared understanding that more can be done together to address the high rates of physical inactivity in Ireland and the health, economic, and social costs related to it”.