The least fit British children 20 years ago would be considered among the fittest children today, according to research.
The report, which features on a BBC television programme about childhood fitness initiative Super Movers, said that the least fit child in a class of 30 in 1998 would be among the five fittest in 2018.
Although childhood obesity has been falling for 10 years, the study found that childhood fitness has continued to fall.
The shift from active play outdoors to indoor screen-based activities has meant that today’s children are the first generation since the Second World War to be less fit than their parents.
“If we could time travel to hold a one-mile race so today’s parents and their children were both 10 years old, mums and dads would win it by about 90 seconds,” said Dr Gavin Sandercock, a sports scientist at the University of Essex.
“About a third of children have clinically low aerobic fitness,” said Dr Sandercock.
The Super Movers programme is a joint venture between the BBC and the Premier League to encourage children to get more active.
“This is an issue families increasingly worry about. By highlighting it, we’re hoping we can help people make a difference in their lives,” said Sinead Rocks, the BBC’s director of education.
“Just a little exercise can have huge benefits,” said Dr Sandercock.
Super Movers is featured on Inside Out, shown on BBC One at 7.30pm on January 22.
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel