Sport England – new report on physical activity and children’s mental health

Activities to support good mental health will be high on the list of activities in many of our centres. Those activities might include therapeutic support, social groups, physical activities, intellectual activities, and probably lots more. Many different types of activity can help to support good mental health in our community.

Sport England has recently published a new report which shows direct benefits between physical activity and diagnosed mental health conditions in children, an area which has previously had little documented evidence. The research gathers together existing research from 143 studies, and shows a consistent picture of the effectiveness of different types of exercise in treating and managing young people’s mental health conditions. The summary findings and a link to the full report can be found on the Sport England website here Sport England new report .

Sport England’s latest Active Lives survey can also be found here. This shows a fairly consistent pattern of adult activity in recent years, but also highlights inequalities. Women, those from lower socio-economic groups, and Black and Asian people, are still less likely to be active than others.

Sport England’s Movement Fund (link here) supports not for profit community groups, local sports clubs and grassroots organisations who have ideas on how to tackle inequalities and get more people active.