For young women, one of the biggest obstacles to participating is the question of what their friends are prioritising. What we increasingly understand from the data that we are collecting is that they are prioritising their bodies for the way they look and not for what they can do, as the noble Lord said. In this context, it is hugely important that young girls have safe and secure opportunities to talk about their fears and anxieties around their bodies, for example in high-quality PHSE, in addition to the opportunities they may or may not have within their own families. It is important that they see women celebrated for qualities other than their ability to wear a dress, and it is essential for them to be invited into the sports arena in a participatory way. There is some dispute about competition, but I
would say that in team sports you learn not only the limits of your own body but the strengths and limits of other people’s contributions. That is a social skill and a skill for life way beyond that of an individual’s fitness.
The Sport England activity programme report says that girls leave school only half as likely as boys to meet the recommended activity level, and one-third of 16 year-old girls do no physical activity at all. It is crucial, even within the terms of this debate, that we imagine how adult women provide role models—or, I would suggest, a lack of role models—for young women. We have to resource and promote activity among the mothers of these young girls, otherwise we will never break the cycle.
For a number of reasons recorded in the register, I visit scores of schools each year. So many girls describe the sports changing room as if it were a gangplank. It is simply the worst moment in their time at school. This needs to be addressed. As my noble friend said, there are specific things here.
I am also a bit concerned as a non-pro about some of the murmurings that I am beginning to hear that sport has become more competitive and that this focus on the elite, the good and the excellent is further alienating young women who should be being encouraged to participate.
I wonder whether Her Majesty’s Government could insist that UK Sport and Sport England take a much stronger position on gender and make their funding of professional sports bodies conditional on imaginative and proactive programmes designed to redress the balance between sportswomen and their male colleagues. As it stands, there are six governing bodies, including cycling, that do not have a single woman on their board.
How important is it for the young women whom we are discussing in this Room that the vilification and objectification of sportswomen, such as Rebecca Adlington or Marion Bartoli, to name just two, should be simply unacceptable? Those women, both talented and triumphant in reaching their aspirations—and ours for them—are a crucial part of the solution. John Inverdale and Derek McGovern today are part of the problem. I feel that all publicly funded bodies—indeed, all sports bodies—should speak publicly and loudly against this kind of offensive abuse of women at the top of their game and the top of their bodies.
It is a miserable state of affairs that the promise of the Olympic legacy one year on has been found so wanting. The Beyond 2012—Outstanding Physical Education For All report states that very few schools have found a balance between participation and elite performance. I am consistently disappointed that the Minister for Education fails to recognise that we must educate the whole child in drama, art, relationships and sexual education, and sport. Happy, fit and confident young people are ready to learn and excel in the ways that we wish them to.
Sport delivers physical confidence and competence. It is essential for health, and it plays an important part in rehearsing social relationships. It allows a young person to feel their strength rather than worry about how they are seen. It helps brain plasticity and
developmental growth. As my noble friend said, it is disappointing that DCMS, the Department for Education and the Department of Health publish report after report, all of which we were sent by the Library, yet we do not have a joined-up and effective post-Olympic strategy that even begins to address the statistic that only 12% of girls undertake the recommended amount of activity. That young women do not participate is a problem for us all. In the words of the previous debate, we must not leave them behind.
7.18 pm
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab): My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for initiating this debate today, contributing in a thoughtful way and raising some important and complicated issues, as did the other speakers. We have had a very wise and well informed debate, and I am conscious that I may not be able to live up to it because, rather like the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, I can talk about sport more than I can do it. I occasionally put my running shoes on—not often enough, I am sure.
The fact is that we have been faced with some pretty depressing statistics about young women’s alienation from sport and exercise. If we are not careful, this will develop—we can already see it developing—into on the one hand an epidemic of obesity among young girls and on the other a whole strata of young women with eating disorders or who resort to cosmetic surgery as a solution. That cannot be right and it shows a real distortion in the minds of young people that that is thought to be the solution to having a beautiful body. If we allow those trends to carry on, it is predicted, for the first time since records began, that the next generation will have a lower life expectancy that the previous one—and that when we have so much good food and capacity for healthy living. It is a real challenge to us. Meanwhile, as noble Lords said, an inquiry by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Body Image heard evidence that more than half the public had a negative body image, and girls as young as five worry about how they look.
We can place clear responsibility for this at the door of the media. We have heard some examples of that this evening. But that is an easy cop-out because, in a sense, we all bear some responsibility for what has happened. All of us, to a greater or lesser degree, have subliminally absorbed some of those messages. Even people who should be more intelligent and knowledgeable seek to improve their body shape and allow their self-confidence to be damaged by images of people with a more perfect body. For example, I think I have been on a diet for most of my adult life. I am probably still on one. I am not quite sure when the last one finished and the new one started. I would like to think I am a sensible grown-up but I still allow myself to be trapped by those sorts of quick fixes about how to get my body back in shape.
As noble Lords have said, although exercise has a crucial role to play, nutrition and the whole concept of food—understanding it and a healthy relationship to it—are equally important in this whole debate. For example, schoolgirls often oscillate between skipping meals and snacking on calories at fast-food outlets.
They get into a cycle of unhealthy eating and body rejection. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, made the point that this is not just about girls but about all young people, yet there is a particular problem about girls. A research project by University College London showed that only 38% of girls had an hour’s exercise a day compared to 68% of boys. We can probably all identify with that: it feels about right.
How do we address this problem? We have to start with the school experience. Regrettably, we are still picking up the pieces from the early decision of the coalition to pull the funds from the school sports partnerships. For the first time, we had a successful model of school activities for all ages, combined with targets for every child to do at least two hours’ PE a week. We were well on the way to achieving that goal when the funding was withdrawn. Although some of the money has been reinstated following massive protest, it no longer has the same coverage, co-ordination or clout. In retrospect, that decision was a disaster for sport in schools, particularly as it coincided with the Olympics. It is not surprising that the recent Lords Select Committee on the Olympic and Paralympic Legacy was so critical of what had happened in school sports over that period. What steps are being taken to retrieve the situation and ensure that, going forward, we provide a comprehensive PE programme in schools?
There is another aspect of school sports policy, one that has already been touched upon, where the Government have been equally misguided. Unfortunately, Michael Gove’s decision to focus on competitive team sports has been a complete turn-off for many girls. This has been compounded by the Prime Minister’s disparaging comments about Indian dance. Sadly, both examples illustrate that the Government do not really understand the psychology of teenage girls. We have heard some examples of the problems of teenage girls and how anxious they feel about being expected to join in some school sports activities. Can the Minister reassure us that the Government have now got the message that we need a range of exercise options to ensure the widespread participation of girls in school sports?
Surely, the strategy has to be to start addressing the issue in early years. We have to find ways of making sport fun; anything, I would say, to keep girls moving so that they get to the point where they feel the natural high that you get from exercise. If you have not had it once or only have it occasionally, you do not crave it any more, but we all know that when you are exercising well and properly it is both physically and, in the same way, mentally rewarding. We somehow need to get them on that loop of progressive physical and mental benefit. We obviously welcome the money that the Government recently invested in primary school sports but, again, we are concerned that it has a two-year limit. I am anxious that that is not enough to ingrain a new sports ethos. Perhaps the Minister can also address that point.
If we are to be effective, we have to create a “sport for all” policy which is not just about the achievement of the most talented and able. Sport in schools should be about establishing healthy lifestyles that can lead to a healthy body weight in adulthood as well. As the
noble Baroness pointed out, we need to break the cycle whereby young girls are so embarrassed about their bodies that they refuse to wear sports clothes, which they feel would expose them to ridicule. For example, a recent study found that 41% of women avoid exercise altogether because they are worried about their appearance and the clothes that they would be expected to wear. A survey by the beauty product brand Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty showed that 22% of girls would never go to a beach or a pool for similar reasons—because they are concerned about the clothes that they would have to wear in their circumstances—and that is just very depressing.
We will not break these cycles of the lack of exercise and body loathing unless we educate young women to rise above the advertising and social media hype, and love their bodies for what they are. There is a role for role models, particularly sporting icons, but it is wrong to place too much emphasis on them. What we need are images of women being active in all sorts of aspects of their lives—as second nature and as an essential part of their lives. Media coverage of women’s sports could also do a great deal to spark interest and participation. We could also do a great deal more to invest not only in women coaches but in local women’s sports clubs.
The Government’s Body Confidence campaign is a good initiative but it needs to be rolled out as part of a comprehensive PSHE curriculum. Perhaps the Minister could update us on the plans for the roll-out of this campaign. At the same time, we have to accept that health professionals need better training, so that they are better able, particularly in schools, to address the issues of obesity and body image when they talk to young people.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that the use of the body mass index as an indicator of health is very limiting. Perhaps we should be looking at replacing it, or supplementing it with more accurate measures of overall health, such as cardiovascular fitness, waist circumference and body fat composition. There is a debate to be had about that. Can the Minister confirm whether such a move is being considered? Ultimately, I believe that we will only improve young women’s body image and physical health if we can find a way of making sport enjoyable again at all ages. That is our real challenge and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on the issue.
7.29 pm
Baroness Northover (LD): My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson for tabling this important debate and opening it so effectively. The debate has been wide-ranging, as was the previous debate, and I may need to write to cover anything that I do not have time to address.
The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and other noble Lords are right. There is no doubt that sport and physical fitness play a significant role in promoting a positive body image among young women. Similarly, women with good body confidence are far more likely to participate in sport. Participation in sport does not just get women fitter, it improves their
resilience, confidence and self-belief, as noble Lords have said. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, it is physically and mentally beneficial. Noble Lords will be familiar with my honourable friend Jo Swinson’s work on body confidence. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for her tribute to it and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for her reference to it.
We know that girls and women, in particular, but also boys, can have low body confidence which affects their very sense of self. Low body image can contribute to poor mental well-being, eating disorders and a number of risky behaviours. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, made clear, the media’s focus on an unrealistic image can be very damaging; my noble friend Lord Addington also took up that point. It is not just girls who are affected. Studies show that one-third of adolescent boys have been on a diet to change their body shape. That is chilling.
We have been working with the media, advertising, retail and fashion industries to encourage a more diverse and realistic representation of human bodies. I note what my noble friend Lord Addington said about what bodies are for, as opposed to what they might look like. Clearly, the way that the media represent bodies affects involvement in sport. Almost a quarter of girls aged seven to 21 do not participate in exercise because they are unhappy with their body image. I was struck by what the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said about changing for PE and games.
More than half of the bullying experienced by young people focuses on appearance, so the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and others are right: poor body confidence can block people from involvement in sport; yet involvement in sport can promote better body confidence. Sport has the potential to show young people that they can master new skills and increase their self-esteem, whether individually or in teams. There has been some discussion of that.
Physical activity helps children developmentally and can often promote a sense of well-being. My noble friend Lord Addington is clearly alive and well despite whatever his BMI might be, which is clearly made up of some weighty muscles. I can vouch for that by his effectiveness when it comes to the annual parliamentary tug-of-war. You want to have him on your side.
The point has been made to me that we need to help not just young women but middle-aged and older women to tackle negative messages. We have packs for parents and teachers of primary school children, which have been developed with the Media Smart trust. They have been downloaded 35,000 times, so they are obviously being used. They will include a guide for parents of teenagers during 2014. I hope that the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Jones, will be pleased to hear about that.
Obviously, we recognise that competition is not for everyone—a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. Just as people are diverse, sports in schools need to be diverse. We share the goals of noble Lords in trying both to address body image and to encourage children, young people and everyone to keep themselves fit through various physical activities or through involvement in competitive sport.
I assure noble Lords that the Government remain committed to delivering a lasting sports participation legacy from London 2012. The long-term trends show that we are on track; 1.4 million more people are playing sport regularly since we won the bid in 2005. We are committed to building on that and are delighted that there are good underlying trends in the number of young people, women and disabled people playing sport regularly. Recent data show that 6.8 million women do sport at least once a week, every week. This demonstrates an increase of half a million from 2005. However, we are not sanguine about this and realise that it needs to go a great deal further.
There is still a gender gap in sports participation, but it is shrinking and our ambition is to close it by 2022. That is why, through Sport England, we have put in place a strong programme of different approaches designed to get more women playing sport each week. These include investing £2.3 million of lottery funding in the I Will If You Will project, a year-long pilot in Bury that began earlier this year. This project focuses on listening to why women are not attracted to sport and exploring ways to give them the fitness opportunities they want. There is scope to roll out the emerging solutions across the country so that others can share in the programme’s insights. There are now 100 girl-only satellite clubs in secondary schools which offer opportunities to take up a variety of sports, including netball and football.
My noble friend Lord Addington referred to coaching. Some 31% of sports coaches in the UK are women and Sport England is investing £5 million to improve the standard and availability of coaching. That includes a pilot project to recruit and retain 500 new female coaches in the south-east. The aim is to roll this out nationally from 2015 and to recruit up to 5,000 new female coaches. We recognise the importance of what the noble Lord is saying.
In addition to these activities, we recognise that we need to focus on the involvement of women in sport at the highest level. That is why my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport recently set up a women and sport advisory board. It has some impressive people serving on it and they are already providing new ideas and support to take the programme forward. We are determined to increase women’s participation in sport, to raise the profile of women’s sport in the media and to get more women into senior roles within sports bodies.
One of the challenges this group will examine is how to raise the profile of women’s sports coverage. In many ways it is encouraging to hear the noise that is being made, not least by women journalists, about this and to see it being pushed forward. Having been familiar with this field for many years, it is good to hear different voices coming in and arguing the same case. The Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation
estimates that before the 2012 Games, only 5% of sports coverage was dedicated to women’s sport. While broadcasters, in particular, have improved things recently, we are always looking at ways of boosting the media profile of women’s sport.
We are also working to help make sports boards more balanced and representative bodies, and Sport England and UK Sport are leading by example on this with women in senior management positions within the organisations at board and CEO level. I should tell the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, that we expect all national governing bodies for sport to have at least 25% of women on their boards by 2017, and 24 out of 57 national governing bodies already meet this target.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asked me about school sports. She will be aware that despite the previous Government’s no doubt admirable efforts to try to improve them in their time in government, and despite a £2.4 billion investment, only two out of five pupils were competing regularly, which did not seem to be the most effective way of moving the issue forward. Schools obviously remain free to work in partnership if they wish, and a £300 million fund has gone into school sports, which is in the hands of head teachers. We are seeking above all to increase participation for everybody right across the age range. I recognise what the previous Government did and hope that we can take forward that further and wider participation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, asked about working across departments. Sometimes I think that we Lords Whips are joined-up government. I used to deputise in health and DCMS matters, and I now lead for GEO and various other things. From my time working across all these departments, I know that these issues come up in every department and I assure the noble Baroness that there is discussion between them. GEO is currently housed within the DCMS, so Helen Grant is in both, and Jo Swinson is working across departments from BIS to GEO and the DCMS.
I realise that I am about to run out of time. In conclusion, it is enough to make me weep to hear about Rebecca Adlington. I know, tangentially, as it were, how much she has put in to reach this point. My kids trained at the same swimming club as her fiancé, Harry Needs, and I know about the early mornings, the late nights, the galas and the falling into bed absolutely exhausted. That is what she has done, and much more, to get to where she is. She should be proud of what she has achieved, and we should be proud of what she has achieved. As we celebrate people’s diversity and encourage girls, as well as boys, to have the confidence to participate in sport, keep themselves fit and find satisfaction in doing so, we will help to address this linkage between how people view themselves and their body and the way they participate in society and, through that, in sport.
Committee adjourned at 7.42 pm.