A study (Jago et al, 2023) led by the University of Bristol finds that by summer 2022, 41% of children aged 10 and 11 were meeting the national recommended guidelines of 60 minutes of physical activity a day.
However, while this is an improvement on the immediate post-Covid levels, it still means that the majority of children are falling short.
The findings are similiar to Sport England research in December, which concluded that only 47% of children aged 5 to 16 meet the 60 minute guideline, with a further 23% completing 30 to 59 minutes a day (Sport England, 2022).
The University of Bristol researchers are particularly concerned after discovering that children are more sedentary during the week since public lockdown restrictions lifted – spending an extra 13 minutes on average daily being inactive according to the findings.
The study, funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research, measured physical activity levels of 393 children aged 10 and 11 between June and December 2021 and a further 436 children of the same age between January and July 2022.
Children and a parent or carer wore an accelerometer to measure their physical activity and answered a questionnaire. Participants came from 28 schools in the Bristol area. This information was compared with data from nearly 1,300 children and their parents from 50 schools in the same area before the pandemic.
Lead author Russ Jago, professor of physical activity and public health, said: “It’s encouraging that on average children’s physical activity levels are back to where they were before the pandemic. But it’s taken nearly a year since the last public lockdown was lifted, and children’s increased sedentary time during the week has persisted, which is an area of concern for policy-makers, schools, and parents.”
The UK Chief Medical Officers recommend all children and young people should take part in an hour of “moderate to vigorous physical activity each day”. This is activity that gets children slightly hot, sweaty, and out of breath.
It comes as separate research this week found that half of parents do not know what the recommended guidelines are for physical activity.
The YouGov study, commissioned by the Youth Sport Trust, found that 48% of the parents asked believe children aged 5 to 18 should be active for at least 30 minutes a day. Only 43% knew that the guidelines recommend an hour’s physical activity a day.
The findings have been published to mark the launch of National School Sports Week which this year will coincide with a campaign to raise awareness of the 60 minute guideline.
National School Sports Week takes place from June 19 to 25 and is aiming to boost children’s activity levels by encouraging people and organisations to make a #PledgeToPlay for 60 minutes every day during this week.
- Jago et al: Short and medium-term effects of the Covid-19 lockdowns on child and parent accelerometer-measured physical activity and sedentary time: A natural experiment, International Journal of Behavioural Nutrition & Physical Activity, March 2023.
- Sport England: Active lives children and young people survey (academic year 2021/22), 2022: https://bit.ly/3V6G7sn
- Youth Sport Trust: National School Sports Week: www.youthsporttrust.org/join-us/nssw