Sports initiatives still unfit for purpose

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/13/sports-initiatives-still-unfit-for-purpose

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All sport is physical activity; all physical activity is not sport (Letters, 11 July; Report, 5 July). It is as wrong to list 383,000 runners as athletes as to list five million health club members as weightlifters. And playing a game once a week can have no possible impact upon obesity.

Pumping money into governing bodies by sports quangos has little impact on adult levels of participation, because clubs create governing bodies, not the other way around. And it is fatuous to imagine that a sedentary young woman would be roused to exercise by the feats of Jessica Ennis. It was equally fatuous to imagine that athletics clubs could absorb the hordes of 10- to 12-year-olds who surged through their gates.

We must separate competitive sport from health-related fitness. So park runs must not be confused with competitive athletics, and for local authorities, adult fitness programmes should be made statutory. If we wish to reach low-income groups, why not ask health club companies to bid for regional contracts, with the best programmes given national application? This mix of local authority/governing body/low-income initiatives, operating through the NHS, could make a considerable impact.

But the elephant in the room is secondary school physical education, where attitudes towards health-related exercise are formed. Recent studies show that approval ratings for PE halve within a year of exposure to secondary education. That is some elephant.Tom McNab, Olympics coach St Albans

• So what is holding girls back from playing football asked Paula Cocozza (From the World Cup to … where?, 11 July)? Quite simply, it is parents’ gender stereotypes. Six-year-old girls just want to kick a ball, learn some skills and have fun with their friends. But they can’t do it if no one takes them to a club to try it out in the first place. Indeed, it says much about the FA’s approach to girls’ participation in football that in the launch of its We Can Play programme, it refers to the top 10 sports that dads want to see their daughter play, without any mention of the preferences of mums. Did they even ask their opinions? As the Olympic legacy, or lack of it, has shown, the FA needs to act quickly and positively if we are to capitalise on the Lionesses’ success at the World Cup. Here’s a suggestion to help them start – how about getting mums more involved in coaching to begin with? Dr Dylan ClementsWest Linton, Scottish Borders