Getting Kiwi kids moving
Stuff series Move It takes a closer look at the role of exercise as medicine. Reporters Jake Kenny and Marine´ Lourens ask how active are Kiwi teenagers?
Arecent global report showed Kiwi teenagers to be among the most inactive the world. The study was based on the physical activity levels of 1.6 million students across 146 countries to determine how many of them adhere to the World Health Organisation’s recommendation of at least one hour of physical activity a day for teenagers. Australia was one of the worst performers, ranking 140, with New Zealand faring only slightly better at 138.
The report on physical activity trends among those aged 11-17 years found 89 per cent of young Kiwis and Australians were not active enough.
Christchurch student Molly Simpson, 16, wants to buck the trend. She recently joined Sport Canterbury’s new Move it O¯ tautahi project, aimed at getting more teenagers back into sport.
The project brings Netball Mainland, Canterbury Cricket and the Canterbury Rugby Union together to collaboratively run events at Christchurch schools, with the overall aim of getting more young people keen on sport and exercise.
Simpson is working as the student voice on the project. She will help find the best ways to get them involved and relay that back to organisers. Simpson is the only high school student on the project’s team.
‘‘I definitely think the issue [of teens not playing sport] lies with balancing time – as work, school and other commitments start to enter the fray, sport is not compulsory and gets dropped pretty easily,’’ she said.
Teenagers also found it hard to get out of their comfort zones, meaning they would be less likely to get involved in something their friends were not already interested in.
‘‘I think having relatable people behind these sorts of events is important,’’ Simpson said. ‘‘If you can relate to people, you are more likely to get involved and think of it as fun, rather than just exercise.’’
Netball Mainland community and pathways general manager Geni Tuilagi is behind Move it
O¯ tautahi, and hopes the project will encourage change in the habits of Kiwi teens.
There was a massive drop in sport participation in Canterbury from the age of 13, she said.
‘‘We thought, rather than the individual sports trying to gain numbers for themselves, why don’t we bring them all together to help each other?’’
The events are less about specific sports and more about being active and having fun. ‘‘Social media has a huge impact on these kids and their wellbeing. ‘‘Sport can be a vehicle to assist with that, it is not just about the physical benefits,’’ she said.
There are also other ways for young people to incorporate exercise into their daily lives without playing a sport or going for a run.
Celia Wade-Brown, national secretary of Living Streets Aotearoa, said active transport was an ideal way to promote physical activity among schoolgoing children but a lot needed to be done to make it a viable and attractive option for children and parents alike.
These include introducing regulations such as car-free zones at school start and finish times, walk to school monitoring, in-school programmes and co-ordinated infrastructure, and speed limit changes at a national level.
Wade-Brown also noted support for ‘‘active transport’’ often translated into cycling-only initiatives and while such programmes were necessary and welcomed, not enough was being done to encourage students to walk more.
‘‘Walking is an easy step for the very inactive, and has additional benefits in that students can socialise more easily with peers as they walk.
‘‘Another benefit of children walking to school is that parents have more choices too and may walk, cycle or take public transport rather than driving to drop the kids at school before proceeding to work,’’ she said.
A document compiled from discussions held at the Active Living and Environment Symposium in Dunedin in February recommended forming a cross-sector group to implement national physical activity strategies.
Recommendations in the document include initiatives such as walk to school days or socalled ‘‘walking buses’’ for children and adolescents, accelerating the rollout of cycle skills training at schools, organising cycle to school days, and making bicycles more affordable through subsidies.