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Sports & Young People:
The Facts

Our goal at LouLou Race Foundation is to get children and young people moving, engaged with one another and their community, and expanding their horizons through competitive sports.

Why sports?

Sports have many physical, developmental and mental health benefits, yet just 47% of children meet the Chief Medical Officers’ guidelines of taking part in an average of 60 minutes or more of sport and physical activity a day.(1)

But two-thirds (67%) of young people aged 12-17 years would like to do more exercise in the future. In fact, 53% say that having someone to do sport with would encourage them to do more exercise, but other key factors include having more free time, the confidence to try new sports and better facilities.(2)

It’s well documented that girls and young people of ethnic minorities or from less affluent backgrounds have fewer sports opportunities provided to them.

Our focus

Lower-income families’ participation

Children and young people from the most affluent families have higher activity levels compared with those from the least affluent families.(3)

Children from more deprived families are three times more likely not to be engaged in sports than those from less deprived families.(4)

Girl participation

Fewer girls meet physical activity recommendations than boys, and female students are 12% less likely to attend sports clubs than their male peers.

Across girls of all ages, the most prominent barrier to PE, sport and physical activity in school is that they are not confident, followed by not liking others watching them.(5)

Ethnic minority participation 

In England, children and young people of black, Asian and other ethnicities are the least likely to be active) compared to white other and white British children and young people.(6)

Benefits of Sports Participation

Three-quarters of parents of children 18 or under think that sport and play help physical health and recognise the impact on their children’s fitness. Yet sport provides more than just physical benefits - it also supports development and wellbeing. Physical activity benefits children’s cognitive function, brain structure and brain function.(7) At this early stage of life, sports participation can also nurture lifelong healthy habits in physical activity.

Children playing organised group sports have fewer mental health difficulties than those not participating in organised group sports.(8) It’s been acknowledged that participating in more physical activity and spending less time sedentary can improve mental health in adolescents, including symptoms of depression.(9)

For youngsters who are not particularly academic, it provides a playbook for learning performance and an enduring lesson that hard work, commitment, and determination will help them succeed. Daily physical activity improves attention and concentration.(10)

Extra-curricular activities have been shown to increase young people’s confidence to interact with others.(11)

Participation in sports and physical activity promotes key employability and life skills in young people such as teamwork, resilience, self-discipline, accountability, social cooperation skills, and perceived self-efficacy.(12)

Sources

1.
Sport England, 2023
2.
Jersey Children and Young People’s Survey 2021
3.
Sport England, 2023
4.
Active Healthy Kids, 2021
5.
Youth Sport Trust, 2023
6.
Sport England, 2023
7.
Donnelly et al., 2016
8.
Hoffmann et al., 2022
9.
Kracht, Pochana and Staiano, 2023
10.
Harris et al., 2018
11.
Department of Education and Institute for Policy Research, University of Bath, 2019
12.
Coalter, Theeboom and Truyens, 2020