Walking to school has future benefits

Helen Trippe highlights the important role of government policy in encouraging physical activity in schoolchildren. The governments new policy statement on sport, Raising the Game, proposes a minimum of two hours of sport and physical education a week for all children up to age 16.2 For Trippe, the policy statement is a start but is not enough: Interventions to change childrens preferred activity levels need to start early, probably in primary schools, or better still at home, she writes. Here she, like the government, is missing out on the action. The journey to school accounts for 35% of all journeys made by children and has the potential to make an important contribution to levels of physical activity. However, since 1975, the average distance walked by schoolchildren has fallen by 27%, largely because of the increasing proportion of journeys to school made by car, which has risen from 12% in 1975 to 23% in 1989-94.