This report shows that there is a crisis in women’s participation in sport and exercise: more than 80% of women are not doing enough physical activity to benefit their health. Young women aged 16 – 24 are nearly half as active as their male counterparts. The statistics are even worse for low income and black and minority ethnic women. Forecasts in participation rates for women in the next ten years show an even gloomier picture: one forecast shows a potential fall of 5.5% by 2017. This could amount to 1.25 million fewer women being sufficiently active. At the same time, three out of five women believe that they do enough exercise to be healthy, whereas in reality less than one in five are actually doing enough.
These figures come at a time when Sport England has pledged to increase participation in sport and exercise by 1% every year. A target of getting two million more people active by 2012 from low participation groups (including women) has been set. To put this challenge in perspective, despite a significant rise in the number of women who think it’s important to be healthy, there has been almost no change in the level of women’s physical activity in the UK for the past 20 years. Meanwhile, the public health threat from obesity has been recognised by the Government as “a potential crisis on the scale of climate change” and may cost the nation £46 billion by 2050.
Reversing this trend means better understanding how women participate in sport and exercise.
Editor's comments - [ According to this research, women do sport differently to men: twice as many men play competitive sports as women and almost six in ten women prefer to exercise rather than to play sport ] Reference this?Cryer, J. (Year). This page title in italics. Retrieved date, from <this page's full URL>
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Reference : WSFF. (2007) It’s time: Future forecasts for women’s participation in sport and exercise. London: WSFF
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