Women: Sport and Physical Activity

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, given that both the previous speakers are sportspeople of considerable stature, I will just add to the very powerful speech of my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson by talking a little about the landscape in which young women grow up. Unless we look at the entire landscape, we really cannot address the problem of sport, and we will never get beyond the rather shameful statistic that only 12% of 14 year-old girls are doing the recommended amount of exercise. That statistic promises a multitude of future problems for their health and probably for the public purse.

Adolescence is a time of extreme self-consciousness as the body makes the crucial developmental journey from childhood to adulthood. It is a journey fraught with hormonal changes, where the relative anonymity of being camouflaged in a group of little people suddenly changes when differences in shape and image become very manifest. Clifford Nass, who was a professor of communications at Stanford University, did a lot of work on investigating the way that young people see themselves as a reflection of how they see others. He found that the narrow definitions of social success and desirability that are fed to young women distort their self-image, and that heavy users of social media are measurably more negative about their own image and emotional state as they seek to emulate the unachievable. The message of that is almost identical in the Government’s report on body confidence, led by the Minister for Women and Equalities, Jo Swinson. It is in this context that we ask young women to make mature choices about their bodies.

For young women, one of the biggest obstacles to participating is the question of what their friends are prioritising. What we increasingly understand from the data that we are collecting is that they are prioritising their bodies for the way they look and not for what they can do, as the noble Lord said. In this context, it is hugely important that young girls have safe and secure opportunities to talk about their fears and anxieties around their bodies, for example in high-quality PHSE, in addition to the opportunities they may or may not have within their own families. It is important that they see women celebrated for qualities other than their ability to wear a dress, and it is essential for them to be invited into the sports arena in a participatory way. There is some dispute about competition, but I would say that in team sports you learn not only the limits of your own body but the strengths and limits of other people’s contributions. That is a social skill and a skill for life way beyond that of an individual’s fitness.

The Sport England activity programme report says that girls leave school only half as likely as boys to meet the recommended activity level, and one-third of 16 year-old girls do no physical activity at all. It is crucial, even within the terms of this debate, that we imagine how adult women provide role models—or, I would suggest, a lack of role models—for young women. We have to resource and promote activity among the mothers of these young girls, otherwise we will never break the cycle.

For a number of reasons recorded in the register, I visit scores of schools each year. So many girls describe the sports changing room as if it were a gangplank. It is simply the worst moment in their time at school. This needs to be addressed. As my noble friend said, there are specific things here.

I am also a bit concerned as a non-pro about some of the murmurings that I am beginning to hear that sport has become more competitive and that this focus on the elite, the good and the excellent is further alienating young women who should be being encouraged to participate.

I wonder whether Her Majesty’s Government could insist that UK Sport and Sport England take a much stronger position on gender and make their funding of professional sports bodies conditional on imaginative and proactive programmes designed to redress the balance between sportswomen and their male colleagues. As it stands, there are six governing bodies, including cycling, that do not have a single woman on their board.

How important is it for the young women whom we are discussing in this Room that the vilification and objectification of sportswomen, such as Rebecca Adlington or Marion Bartoli, to name just two, should be simply unacceptable? Those women, both talented and triumphant in reaching their aspirations—and ours for them—are a crucial part of the solution. John Inverdale and Derek McGovern today are part of the problem. I feel that all publicly funded bodies—indeed, all sports bodies—should speak publicly and loudly against this kind of offensive abuse of women at the top of their game and the top of their bodies.

It is a miserable state of affairs that the promise of the Olympic legacy one year on has been found so wanting. The Beyond 2012—Outstanding Physical Education For All report states that very few schools have found a balance between participation and elite performance. I am consistently disappointed that the Minister for Education fails to recognise that we must educate the whole child in drama, art, relationships and sexual education, and sport. Happy, fit and confident young people are ready to learn and excel in the ways that we wish them to.

Sport delivers physical confidence and competence. It is essential for health, and it plays an important part in rehearsing social relationships. It allows a young person to feel their strength rather than worry about how they are seen. It helps brain plasticity and developmental growth. As my noble friend said, it is disappointing that DCMS, the Department for Education and the Department of Health publish report after report, all of which we were sent by the Library, yet we do not have a joined-up and effective post-Olympic strategy that even begins to address the statistic that only 12% of girls undertake the recommended amount of activity. That young women do not participate is a problem for us all. In the words of the previous debate, we must not leave them behind.