The Scottish Government's "chronic underfunding" and proposed £4 million budget cut for sport will increase Scotland's health problems, MSPs have heard.
Conservative health spokesman Brian Whittle said sport is a key aspect to tackling Scotland's health problems, as he accused the Government of failing to back up health pledges with action.
Speaking in a Scottish Parliament debate, he said: "It is imperative we reverse the continuing worrying slide in the health of our nation.
"We know that the Scottish population are increasingly likely to be inactive, more likely to have weight issues, more likely to have mental health problems, and increasingly likely to contract type two diabetes.
"Most shocking of all, for the first time in history children born today could have a life expectancy of less than their parents. A different approach must be required."
He said encouraging children to be active from nursery school age and making sport accessible to all are critical to improving health, but spending on sport is just 0.1% of the Scottish Government budget and faces a £4 million cut.
He said: "Sport is chronically underfunded in this country and becoming more inaccessible as the basic cost of entry rises. Continuing in this direction will accelerate the inactivity and therefore the health inequality and the ill health of our country."
Labour's Colin Smyth said NHS funding is failing to keep up with demand, and he accused the Scottish Government of "taking their eye off the ball" over health inequality.
He said: "The truth is that individuals and communities need to be helped to take more responsibility for their health, and that includes no-one's health being disadvantaged by where they live or what they earn.
"Deprivation and inequality is all too often the driver of someone's health. To tackle health inequality we need to tackle wealth inequality."
He said the Scottish Government draft budget shows "contempt" for the fight to tackle health inequalities with a £327 million cut to core local government funding.
He added: "Cutting local council budgets will not cut health inequalities."
Public Health Minister Aileen Campbell said UK Government austerity measures are in part driving the inequalities and increasing barriers to participation in sport.
She said the pace of change and improvement "isn't quick enough" and the Scottish Government would continue work started on public health reform.
She said: "We will work with local government to agree a set of national public health priorities that will inform local, regional and national action."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article