Children and sport

Links between exercise and health are well established,1 yet levels of activity among adults are at best moderate and in many cases low.2 3 4 Concerns about the decline in provision of physical activity for children at school have been raised at various times during the past decade.5 6 Against this background the British government's new policy statement on sport, “Raising the Game,” aims to help schools to re-establish sport as “one of the great pillars of education,” to achieve “the wider social and health benefits of sport,” and to assist children to make “informed decisions about adopting healthy and active lifestyles.”7 Although this comes at a time when schools have weathered a great deal of change, much of which has affected the teaching of sport,5 cynics might still observe that there is a lot of ground to be made up before all pupils play sport in the sunlit uplands described in the report. The main thrust of the publication is about raising standards and levels …