For more than two decades, it’s been apparent that baby boomers, born in the 20-year period immediately following the end of the Second World War, were likely to live significantly longer than their parents and grandparents.
A combination of improved health care, diet and several hours a week of compulsory school sport, played 40-odd years ago, accounts for the seemingly relentless, one-way direction of life expectancy figures.
Only three years ago, actuaries at the Department for Work and Pensions suggested that children born today could live until they were 120.
However, following the publication of a damning report, I fear those life expectancy figures may be in need of revision, while the NHS is likely to require billions in extra funding simply to handle the surge in child obesity levels.
According to a comprehensive analysis undertaken by the Youth Sport Trust (YST), children born today are forecast to be up to 30 per cent less active by 2030 than they were in 1961. It concludes that by the time the leave primary school, one third of today’s children are either obese or overweight. The modern-day penchant for far too much sedentary, computer-linked gaming activity is creating an enormous future liability.
Figures suggest that the cost of treating and / or coping with obesity, either directly or indirectly, will total £53 billion, a constant drain on the economy over coming decades.
YST figures show that in the last school year, children aged between five and seven spent, on average, just 102 minutes a week in PE classes compared to more than two hours (127 minutes) in 2009-10, a fall of almost 20 per cent.
Less than one in five primary schoolchildren now meet the minimum recommended guidelines for physical activity. The London Olympics’ legacy was intended to inspire a generation. Despite their exorbitant cost (the true figure has never been made public, but the likelihood is it wasn’t far short of £11 billion), this laudable aim has clearly failed.
Even so, since 2012, the Department for Education has, disgracefully, scrapped the requirement for state schools to provide at least two hours of PE activity per child, per week.
It also attempted to remove an undertaking to make available £162 million of supposedly ring-fenced funding for School Sport Sponsorships, although following an outcry, the DoE undertook a partial about-turn; if elected in May, the Conservatives are committed to spending up to £150 million on the sport sponsorships for the next five years.
Simply accepting inactivity and indolence amongst children comes at a cost.
Not only are they more likely to suffer from (preventable) type-2 diabetes, but research shows that indolent children can also suffer from an impairment of their cognitive functions.
Money spent on school sport is rarely wasteful.
This week, the YST proved the case beyond doubt.
