Patrick Canning | Sports, Health and Wellbeing Editor
Jack Mitchell-Divers | Editor-In-Chief
We sat down with Mr. Shaw, the health and wellbeing coordinator for the school, to obtain his thoughts on physical activity and nutrition within the school.
Q When you were younger how did you maintain a fit and healthy lifestyle yourself?
Right well it was always a challenge and certainly when I was significantly younger I played cricket at a fairy high level for a team in Glasgow just below international level so that kept me quite busy. But of course, that would just have been through the summer months. For a lot of my life I also played five a side football on a weekly basis – did that quite regularly. Other than that, just being aware of it, it has always been something I have been aware of, since I was your age and earlier.
So what about now?
It’s not a secret in 2008 I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Now this was in my case hereditary. My grandfather and my father had that. And sometimes although type 2 diabetes is often associated with a poor lifestyle I can honestly say I think in most cases that wasn’t the situation with me! But before that though certainly with about just over 10 years ago, when I stopped playing cricket in 2004 I started running regularly. So that has been a fairly big part of my life. Since then I have run 3 or 4 official races every year – the Glasgow 10K – originally a half marathon. I ran 2 marathons in 2005 and 2006 so I took it quite seriously for a while. As you get older that gets more difficult. I also joined a gym for the first time in 2004. I have also played golf on and off since I was about your age but I was never very good! Basically I know now the chronic medical condition I have got, if I don’t look after myself and exercise properly then the consequences can be quite serious. The changes are forced upon me. I have to do it now.
Q What would you recommend would be the optimum amount of sporting fitness in a normal working week?
Well, doctors would say that we would all – regardless of our age – certainly from early teenage years to pensionable age you should be doing at least one hour of moderate to vigorous exercise each day . And that is the message that I’m currently trying to get across to pupils in the school. The media are featuring health and wellbeing in their headlines more and more often because I feel we are living a time bomb. And people of your generation who have become so obsessed with IT – and things that involve them sitting in seats and that is what I refer to as the killer chair. The chairs will kill us all if we don’t get enough exercise and get out of them on a regular basis.
So I’m sure you are aware of the figures revealing that only one in ten secondary school pupils are getting optimum amount of exercise per day. What measures in the school are we taking to try and reduce this figure?
I should be aware of it – it was me that told them! As was revealed on the front page of the Scotsman on 2nd August which was unfortunate timing in that it was still during the school holidays so a lot of people will have missed that. And on that particular message the First minister was specifically quoted as wanting to introduce the daily mile into secondary schools which has been common practice in primary schools for some time. I felt that quite a lot of pupils from second to sixth – a lot of them go out during the day to the village and back – now that is about a mile if they do that. I accept that a lot of them don’t do that briskly but a lot of them have to do that quite briskly because they are short of time. For the first years we have been organizing a walk 20 minutes from the end of lunch to help the gain this daily mile. So that’s one thing. We have other plans. First of all the obvious ones which I have been doing – awareness raising. You know making pupils and staff aware of the need to do this because I have canvassed some of our pupils and I don’t think the figure of 1 in 10 is far off. We have phenomenal pupils who are involved in all sorts of sporting activities – well beyond the recommended minimum. we have some great stuff going on. We have never had as many sports leaders as we have got in the current sixth year. It is absolutely – I am really really, really impressed.. Last year we did a staff health day which went particularly well and if we can maintain that a bit because if the staff are doing it then that can only be good. We have the new fitness suite which I’m hoping will be up on the go soon . Even if you just have 15 minutes at lunch time I would hope that maybe staff, maybe senior pupils will be able to go in there at lunch time without any great issue. I want to have a culture of health and wellbeing when we are all talking about it.
Q – I just wanted to get your thoughts on variety of meal options that are offered to all the pupils outwith the school such as the Village or the Town Centre.
I’ve obviously got concerns because a lot of the things that I have talked about in assemblies is the amount of salt and sugar – and that is again a worry because neither rare great in massive quantities. The average take away – particularly Chinese ,Indian –are heavy in salt content – heavily. And of course when you have a lot of salt you need to drink. So what you do is you need to have your can with it. So it is very common for me to see pupils walking back into the building with their Chinese with their kebab… and their can of coke. So its double jeopardy. So I’m not totally puritanical about this, we all have our weaknesses – we have our moments. You know you want to enjoy life. None of us can not have the occasional – it is just thinking about how often. I mean I might have – maybe every couple of weeks – maybe something that I maybe shouldn’t. But you know if you do it on a regular basis you are going to have problems. Everything that the canteen does is regulated now under the Food and Nutrition Act 2008. What they sell is very carefully regulated and therefor if you are buying anything from there then the amount of salt and sugar content is significantly lower as it has to be. That is a good thing. Yea but some concerns but a realistic approach as well.
Q – So moving on to something a bit different. We know that a lot of the pupils of the school are from different backgrounds. What would you personally suggest to pupils who’s circumstances may inhibit their access to the healthy lifestyle that you suggest.
That’s a very good question and a very difficult one , and this is something that is covered in the media quite a lot these days simply because people do struggle for money. A lot of healthy options are significantly more expensive. It’s much cheaper to buy biscuits than it is to buy fruit. This largely – this is an issue for the Government. I’m hoping that if they are serious about supporting us then they have to look at that. Certainly, when pupils who have – or are entitled to free dinners – have to use that within the school therefore they should be getting access to the healthy options that are offered there. So that’s a bit less of a worry. But it’s what they are going home to at night. It’s much easier to produce a plate of chips than it is to produce a salad so yes that is going to be a challenge for us.
Q – So last of all, what would you say was the number one benefit of having a healthy lifestyle.
Dead simple guys – two words – feeling good! As I have said, often – if you are eating well –if you are feeling fit, you will feel the benefits. When you do take party in vigorous activity it releases endorphins in to the body that make you feel good. I mean when I come out of a heavy session in the gym I might be exhausted but I feel good. Certainly it raises how you feel about yourself – my body tells me you have not done anything today and you feel less good. I know if I’ve had a good night sleep – if I’ve had a decent breakfast – if I’ve been keeping up to date with my health and my fitness I should feel good. Hopefully you can relate to that.
