Bethan Jenkins AC/AM South Wales West

Bethan spoke on Tuesday, February 2 on the Welsh Government’s Physical Activity Action Plan. Here’s what she said:

I would like to begin by thanking the Minister and his team for what is, to my mind, the most comprehensive report so far on helping people in Wales to make the most from physical activity.

This is most important, because the figures continue to worry:

• Less than a third (30%) of Welsh adults take enough activity to benefit their health;
• Less than a half (44%) of children between 7 to 11, and just over a third (35%) of those aged 11 to 16, have 60 minutes of moderate activity five days a week;
• One in 10 children aged 7 to 11, and 14% of 11 to 16-year-olds are not physically active for 60 minutes on any day of the week;
• Wales has one of the highest levels of obesity among teenagers in the Western world;
• Nearly two thirds (62%) of men and over half (53%) of all women in Wales are overweight or obese;
• The cost of physical inactivity to Wales is around £650 million per year.

Now we have changed the targets we set to address these problems. Instead of looking to increase percentage points for those taking exercise, which I found a slightly abstract way of approaching the issue, the Welsh Government has gone for something that everybody will get – doing ‘one day more’.

It’s an easily understandable aim, and something everyone can participate in, according to their level of activity – whether you are already active or just starting out. This better suits the central aim of Creating an Active Wales – “making activity a natural part of people’s lives”.

I wanted to focus on a couple of areas of the report and offer some thoughts. The first really doesn’t have anything to do exercise, as it addresses the social marketing aspect of the plan. Of course, we want to get young people away from their screens and out into the open, but how are we going to encourage them to do so. Young people aged 13 to 24 are the hardest aged group to market to – particularly so, these days, when online accessibility allows them to develop their own peer environments and share with little regard for recommendation, suggestion or coercion from elsewhere.

Having read through Creating an Active Wales, this section on social marketing concerns me the most. Whereas elsewhere there are firm proposals for taking forwards the report’s aims, and making them a reality, the social marketing campaign appears not to have been developed much beyond an assertion that we must do something.

There is mention of linking in such a campaign with the Department of Health’s Change4Life campaign. Its website claims that over 400,000 families have joined in with its work, yet the Facebook group has only 300 members. I couldn’t find any Twitter account. Both represent the biggest names in social media.

This raises some questions:

• Have we assessed how successful Change4Life has been, particularly in reaching the markets it has targeted, and particularly through social media?
• Do we know what routes it uses to reach target audiences, and how effective it is in achieving its aims?
• Have we considered that what might work for England may need adapting for Wales?
• How far advanced is a fully integrated social media campaign that will have the depth of reach we require if we are to tackle obesity and inactivity among young people?

So much of this kind of marketing fails because it does not understand the people it is attempting to speak to. I would suggest that we cannot fail here, which is why I believe we need to ask robust questions about its viability before we introduce it.

There are many areas of the report where there is potential for crossover – families taking exercise together helps towards targets for young and old people, for example. I recently spent some time at the Margam Discovery Centre, in my region. While it has a fantastic new, low carbon building, one of its greatest strengths is the work it does in outdoor classrooms.

It seems to be that there is few better ways of helping both young and older people to get active than through getting them interested in learning in a fresh air environment.

Looking through the report, the Margam Discovery Centre answers all kinds of aims. As well as encouraging active children and young people, it provides access to green space and countryside, delivers and active environment, connects with inequalities aims, and ties in with working with local authorities. It supports whole school approaches, including curricular and extra-curricular provisions and supports active adults.

I am sure that the Welsh Government, in implementing this authoritative and much-needed report, will make use of such facilities when delivering services that will support the aims of Creating an Active Wales.