2.3m kids ‘don’t exercise enough’

A THIRD of children who took part in a major study are doing less than 30 minutes of physical activity a day.

The research by Sport England found around three million children (43.3 per cent ) lead active lives, doing an average of 60 or more minutes of physical activity a day.

However, just over 2.3 million children and young people (32.9pc) are less active, which means they do less than 30 minutes of physical activity a day.

Among active children, only the most active 1.2 million (17.5% of the total) are meeting the Chief Medical Officer’s guideline of at least 60 minutes of activity a day, every day of the week.

A further 1.7 million (23.9%) are fairly active, doing 30-59 minutes of physical activity a day. The findings have led Sport England chief executive Tim Hollingsworth to call for more focus on the health and wellbeing of young people along with a system-wide change.

“Parents, schools, the sport and leisure industry and government all have a role to play in addressing and increasing childhood activity,” he said.