General Article Physical literacy – the vaccine against the inactivity crisis

Topic Selected: Fitness
This article is 7 years old. Click here to view the latest articles for this topic.

By Dean Horridge

Physical literacy is seen as a “vaccine” against the inactivity crisis. If this is the case, why do we have so many children leaving primary school not physically literate?

Physical literacy refers to movement competency; how well can children run, skip, hop, jump, throw and catch. It also refers to motivation and confidence. The better children are at these skills, the more confident they become and the more motivated they are to keep on participating or even try something new. They will also look for opportunities to be active if we allow them to!

For many years we have been disengaging children by making them play sport before they have learnt the fundamental movement skills.  It’s time to change and develop children’s skills and confidence to be physically active. Engaging children in fun activity to get them moving from a young age will keep them motivated and will embed healthy and active habits for life.

It does not need to be over complicated and it is not h...

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