The Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo MP, then Minister of State for Public Health

SPORT AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY

From a speech on 11th February 2009 by the Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo, then Minister of State for Public Health.

I think it was Mark Twain who said, “You shouldn’t read anything about your health in books — you might just die of a misprint!”

If he were alive today and saw the research on obesity, perhaps he’d change his tune. No misprints here. The challenge is considerable, and physical activity is a key part of our response.

We all know the health benefits. The way exercise can help us cut chronic diseases — cancer, cardio-vascular disease and diabetes — and similarly, in mental health, helping to fight everything from depression to dementia. Then there are the particular benefits to children and young people, helping them to stay active and healthy now and in the future.

The bottom line is that regular physical activity — or ‘moving more’ as the little figures on our Change4Life adverts put it — is literally a life-saver.

Around one in every 11 early deaths could be prevented if people started doing at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise five days a week.

Amazing how few of us actually manage it. About 27 million — roughly two-thirds of all adults in England — don’t meet this ‘five by 30 minute’ rule.

Of course, what’s bad for our health is also bad for our finances.

More than a penny in every single pound spent in the NHS — up to £1.8bn a year — could be saved if we got more people exercising regularly.

Today’s new research shows every primary care trust in the country could save £5mn a year on average simply by boosting rates of physical activity in their area. And the whole economy could claw back over £8bn a year from absence and premature deaths if we get the whole nation moving more.

Then, of course, there’s the environmental premium: the obvious point that walking and cycling can help us all live greener lives.

So it saves lives. It saves money. It saves the planet. By my reckoning that makes physical activity one of the ‘best buys’ in public health.

But, of course, the greatest thing about physical activity is the pleasure it can bring people.

The good news is we have a great chance ahead of us. The Olympics Games can help us achieve something very special. It can provide a wake-up call to the entire nation. A clear message, for all of us, to get ourselves active — whatever our age, whatever our ability, whatever our interests.

We’re working hard across government to hit the legacy target: 2 million more people active by 2012.

My argument today is that to hit this mark our message needs to be not so much ‘yes, we can’, as President Obama put it, but ‘yes, you can’.

It’s saying to people:

• Yes you can stay fit and active if you’re a pensioner or have a disability
• Yes you can find time for exercise if you’re a busy professional, a working mum, a lead councillor, even a minister of state
• And, at a time when everyone is feeling the pinch, yes you can keep your family fit without spending lots of money.

Today we take another step towards achieving this. Because the new physical activity plan will help us spread a virtuous virus, what I call ‘YesYouCan-itis’ across the country.

We want to take the dazzling array of organisations and projects — and there are some fantastic examples around the country — we want to take all this to build a new approach to physical activity centred on communities, centred on people’s needs and centred on what we know works.

First, there will be an extra £1mn this year for County Sports Partnerships and another £3mn next financial year to help co-ordinate sport and physical activity at a local level. County Sport Partnerships already have a great record for helping councils bring local clubs and providers together in a meaningful way. This new money will allow them to complete the job, building a new coherence and responsiveness into the system so that sport and physical activity become part of the fabric of everyday, community life.

We’re also creating a new Physical Activity Alliance, made up of organisations from across the sport and physical activity landscape — including both voluntary and private-sector bodies — to stimulate activity and build local capacity.

I have to say, we’re extremely excited by this alliance. We think it’s the first time in the world such a wide range of groups, spanning all three domains of physical activity, are talking together and thinking together on this scale.

What’s clear is that to create this ‘active nation’, we need schemes that genuinely appeal to people — appeal to their lifestyles, appeal to their preferences and appeal to their aspirations. Sometimes that also means appealing to the everyday things — the small shifts that make a big difference.

Walking is a case in point. I want us to revive our nation’s passion for walking; getting people to see it as a pleasure, not a chore. And falling in love again with a country ramble or a Sunday stroll — something we’ve perhaps lost sight of in the hustle and bustle of daily life.

Hence, the new work with Natural England to expand the Walking the Way to Health scheme. It already offers more than 2,000 walks to more than 30,000 people each week. We want to build on that.

Local delivery is key to this, and communities rightly should be at the helm. So, together with Walk England, we want local people to drive forward the new ‘Twenty-Twelve for Twenty-Twelve’ scheme. A new programme to create two thousand and twelve active challenge routes across England to celebrate the Olympics.

Every part of the country has hidden gems — beautiful, inspiring walks that raise your spirits as well as your pulse rate. I want us to lay down the challenge locally, for people to share their favourite walks and enjoy routes they may not have tried themselves.

Moving on, swimming is another key focus; again, something for families, something for people of all ages. But there are barriers. Too many adults are held back from taking their kids for a weekend dip because they can’t swim themselves.

So we want to work with councils and the Amateur Swimming Association on new Learn to Swim courses for adults, that’s on top of wider efforts through the Free Swimming to get more people to take the plunge. Again, it’s crucial for opening doors to physical activity.

Finally, as you may have heard in the media, we’re setting up a dance working group. This may involve the glamour of Strictly Come Dancing, if we can persuade them to come on board.

More seriously, we hope the working group can pick up on people’s enthusiasm for dance. It’s already well established in schools. The success of TV shows like Strictly Come Dancing tells us there’s potential to go further.

The point is we want everyone, whatever their interests, whatever their abilities and whatever their age or physical condition, to feel, ‘Yes, I can do something to get myself fitter’ and, better still, ‘Yes I will’.

Of course, this is about changing cultures as much as structures.

GPs and health professionals, for instance, are crucial. We already have the Physical Activity Care Pathway operating in some areas, where doctors are screening and then advising patients on exercise habits.

We want to broaden this pilot through the spring to cover other parts of the country. Because we need GPs pushing the ‘be active’ messages hard — every bit as hard, in fact, as they do with smoking and alcohol support.

Doctors should be ready to advise people to exercise or join a gym just as readily as they would prescribe drugs.

Tone is everything, of course, and we need this to be in the ‘Yes you can’ spirit too — encouraging, not hectoring, with doctors and practice nurses giving practical, supportive advice to help people get active.

People need to feel empowered, not nagged or nannied. Hence, the significance of things like the NHS LifeCheck pods, where people can check for themselves how healthy they are.

There are LifeCheck demonstration pods here today — strategically, and perhaps rather unfairly, placed in the food area I notice! — so I’d encourage you to pay them a visit during break-outs or the lunch hour. They will be going live in pilot areas later this month.

Of course, the other side of a ‘Yes, you can’ culture is removing the ‘No you can’ts’. As a society, we’re more than a little prone to a touch of ‘NoYouCan’t-itis’. And we need to fight that wherever we can. For instance, we need to end messages like, ‘No you can’t join a sports club if you’re over 65’.

It’s important, because we know rates of physical activity drop off after retirement, yet the benefits of getting active are even more tangible and immediate for older people: reduced falls; better cardio-vascular health; and improved well-being and mental health.

We need to attack a culture that assumes that the elderly are infirm. Why are we so surprised when we see pensioners running the Marathon? Why do we assume a fit, healthy 65 year old wants to spend his or her retirement on the couch rather than on the sports field or tennis court?

And there’s a real opportunity here for local clubs to open themselves up to older people far more. We know this can work. Seniors golf and seniors tennis are already well-established. Great work is also underway in rugby union.

So let’s build on this. Let’s see an ‘active ageing’ culture take root across the sporting landscape, opening doors and expanding choice, not restricting it.

A second ‘No, you can’t’ I want to mention is very simple: ‘No, you can’t walk there’. Two points here. First, nature is for everyone and should be available to everyone. So we’re introducing new legislation — the Marine and Coastal Access Bill — which will transform access to Britain’s coast line and beaches — opening up the opportunities for everyone to enjoy our island’s beauty to the full and keep fit in the process.

But this point holds true for our cities as much as our sea fronts. So we also need to think about street layouts that are hostile to pedestrians and cyclists: Pelican crossings that don’t allow older people enough time to cross safely; and transport routes that don’t allow kids to cycle and walk to school safely.

In other words, we need action across government — central and local — to make the whole environment more conducive to people staying active and hence staying healthy. That takes me on to my final ‘No you can’t’. A classic one: ‘No you can’t play ball games here’. I know it’s almost a cliché to bring this up, and sometimes the signs are warranted, we all accept that. But what I’m really getting at here is a broader culture. ‘No Ball Games’ is a symbol of a whole attitude to community planning that needs to change: a tarmac-at-all costs culture that sees any waste ground as fair game for the cement lorry.

The best developments show us you can do things differently. A little paint, a little planning, a little empathy, the same space can become a centre for the community, not a concrete jungle. It sends out a green-light signal. It becomes a ‘Yes you can’ place, not a ‘No you can’t’ one.

Children’s play is key to this whole debate. I’m delighted the Children’s Plan will see more than £200mn pumped into building or refurbishing playgrounds — really putting play at the heart of planning. But this goes beyond playgrounds. We have to recognise physical activity as an essential human need, upper most in our minds as we plan and shape our communities. The best councils and housing associations already do it. Let’s see it register on that scale, with that degree of ambition and intensity, everywhere!

Conclusion

If a space rocket deviates from its course by a tiny degree, it can end up on a different planet. In the same way, small shifts in behaviour can set us on very different path. That’s the spirit behind Change4Life and today’s Physical Activity Plan. Because the path to 2050 isn’t fixed. We can still escape a world where nine in 10 people are overweight.

Let’s remember the difference between a fat nation and a fit nation is one letter. The letter ‘I’. It’s not just word play. My entire point today is that we’ve got to keep the ‘I’ factor close to our hearts. Because, at the end of the day, this is about choice not compulsion, people not process, empowerment not social engineering.

So let’s be crystal clear: we’re not talking about the fitness police chasing people home from burger bars; we’re talking about a community movement facilitated by local authorities and delivered as much as possible ‘from below’.

So, the ‘I factor’, the personal dimension, is key to this. If we “Think I” at all times — understanding local areas, understanding people’s motivations and putting their needs first — we can move in a genuinely new and exciting direction. That’s how we can start a revolution.

With your help, with your ideas, with your commitment, I look at everything we want to achieve in this area; I look at the challenge and the opportunity and I say, with real confidence, ‘Yes, we can!’

Yes we can transform attitudes to physical activity. Yes we can write a new chapter in health and well-being and yes we can defuse the obesity timebomb. Thank you for being such a key part of this journey. I hope you enjoy the rest of your conference.

Biography of the Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo MP, Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families

Dawn Primarolo has lived in Bristol since the late 1970s and, after a period as a member of Avon County Council, she was elected Member of Parliament for Bristol South in 1987.