Sport has many benefits for our bodies, minds and communities, and is particularly important in fighting obesity. Many sports cause us to get dirty, and if we are not willing to get dirty through sport, it is our health that could be compromised.
Most sports get us dirty, and have many benefits for our physical health, Exercise, or just an active lifestyle, keeps your whole cardio-vascular system healthy. It helps to circulate oxygen and nutrients around the body, removing toxins in the process as well as helping to build and maintain strong and healthy bones. It re-energizes, reduces headaches and muscular tensions, and reduces the risk of many major diseases such as heart disease and some forms of cancer.
But the benefits of exercise don’t stop with our bodies it helps keep our minds healthy too. Exercise can foster greater self-esteem and self and self-confidence and elevate our mood, and many therapy programs involve exercise and sport. School children who have energetic break times are also more attentive, and concentrate better in class. Socially, sport teaches children to learn to get on better with others, and brings adults, children and their families together, strengthening bonds within the communities we inhabit.
Despite all the benefits or exercise, there has been a decrease in the overall participation levels in physical activity by adults in recent years. It is estimated that around 17% of adults globally are inactive, ranging from 11% in southern Africa to 24% in central Europe. On average 41% of adults do less than 2 ½ hours of physical activity a week. Equally, children are being given fewer opportunities to be active, with parents in developed countries now driving their children to school rather than letting them walk, and opportunities for school sports diminishing. These are worrying findings, considering the global obesity epidemic the world is currently facing.
Increasingly sedentary lifestyles, combined with an increased consumption of energy-dense foods have lead to an alarming rise in the proportion of people classified as overweight or obese, and this is not just a developing world phenomenon. At present, the number of overweight people is rivaling the number of underweight people across the globe. There are still almost 780 million underfed people in the developing world, but there were now over 300 million obese adults. At least 155 million school-ages children worldwide are overweight or obese. This accounts for 2-3% of children in the world aged between 5 and 17.
If we try to live our lives free of dirt, we are reducing opportunities to undertake sports and exercise, yet these can contribute to our physical emotional and social well-being. And play a vital role in reversing obesity
