Adam Muirhead
Barely one in ten Scottish children in the later years of school do the minimum recommended hour of physical exercise each day, according to the Scottish Government. Research has found that Scotland has one of the best environments for outdoor play among the 36 countries that took part.
Recent research has found out that boys are more active than girls. Data has been gathered using monitors and it is shown that kids on average, nowadays spend seven and a half hours a day sitting about, watching TV and playing on gadgets and electronics, compared to only, on average, seventy three minutes doing moderate, gentle exercise. Previous research has found that exercise time between children aged five and eighteen drops by 61%. Studies have also found out that parents have become more reluctant to letting their children play outside in recent years due to “new dangers”. The findings were published and they showed that Scottish youngsters were among the unhealthiest in the world with 34% of children being overweight or obese. Recent figures have shown that by 2035, five in six of the current children of Scotland will become obese.
Miles Briggs, the Scottish Tories’ shadow health minister, said: “This is a problem for everyone – the entire country is impacted. From a public health perspective it is extremely alarming that such a low amount of children are doing enough exercise each day.”
