95% of NZ girls aged 11 to 17 not exercising enough

A new report by the World Health organisation shows Kiwis lagging much of the world in physical activity, with one expert saying there’s “a mix of things” we need to focus on to improve our exercise rates.

According to the report, 95% of girls aged 11-17 are physically inactive and 85% of boys in the same bracket are physically inactive, compared to the global average of 81%.

Forty-five per cent of women are inactive and 39% of men are inactive, and 62% of women and 55% of men over 70 don’t exercise enough.

Exercise New Zealand chief executive Richard Beddie told Breakfast this morning “a lot of people are shocked by these statistics”.

“I think the illusion we have in New Zealand is that we’re a sporting nation, and we know that on the sports field we actually have some great talent,” he said.

“But the problem is that generally does not translate into participation, and elite sport and participation are not as linked as people would think.

“And I think this fixation with sport is part of the problem because sport is part of the solution to physical activity, but it’s not the only part.

“There are two other important bits, one of which is what we call incidental activity – so that’s cycling to work or in the case of walking to school, cycling to school – but also there’s structured exercise.”

He said structured exercise is growing quickly, so sport has a role to play but it’s not the long-term solution.

“It’s a mix of things that we need to focus on,” Beddie said.

Hadleigh Pouesi, a youth worker at Zeal New Zealand, agreed.

“Trying to get kids physically active, you’re competing against their devices now,” he said. “So at such a young age, they’re not understanding the enjoyment of just being physically active, it goes straight to competition, and as soon as you go to competition a lot of young people just steer clear away from that.

“They don’t want to be a part of that but they never got the opportunity to find out the fun that can be had through physical activity.”

Beddie said the figures for girls in particular are “a major problem”.

“If you’re looking at a school level, it actually impacts academic performance, the best thing you can do for a young tamariki is to actually get them physically active, it actually improves academic performance.

“Enjoying what we do with physical activity is so important, not doing the thing as a chore, because the reality is we’ll do that for a short period,” he said.

“We need to focus on things that we can enjoy, and whether that is rugby, or netball, or going to the gym, or yoga, they’re activities that we can do and some of them are not competitive, and that’s really important.”