That’s the call from Clare Morley, chief executive of the region’s leading health and wellbeing charity, Rise.
Her calls come after Sport England released the latest data on the population’s activity levels – which shows that the region is one of the least active in the country.
Clare comments: “While it’s heartening that British adults are the most active they’ve been in a decade, unfortunately this does not reflect the picture in our region – the North East has some of the lowest levels of physical activity in the country.
It’s a proven fact that physically inactive populations are often also the most marginalised – and most likely to be adversely affected by health, social and economic inequalities.
“A significantly high proportion of our communities are considered inactive – that is doing less than 30 minutes of physical activity a week.
Here at Rise, we work tirelessly to advocate for the transformative effect of physical activity and how it can be used to address so many issues in our society, from improving mental health, to educational attainment and community cohesion.
We work with partners to collaborate around many of the big issues that our communities face. In particular, we really want to support the people in the North East who are physically inactive, and work with partners and organisations across the region to use movement as a tool to change lives.”
At a regional level, the Active Lives data shows:
- Rates of inactivity in Northumberland and Tyne and Wear are higher (27.27%) than the rest of England (25.70%).
- In Gateshead and South Tyneside, around a third of the population are considered inactive; 33.3% in Gateshead and 30.6% in South Tyneside.
- Sunderland and North Tyneside also have higher inactivity rates than the national average of 25.7% – Sunderland is 27.8%, while North Tyneside is 28.7%.
Sport England chief executive, Tim Hollingsworth, adds: “While there are many positives, the report also reminds us how much there is still to do. At the moment, a person’s likeliness to be active depends too much on their bank balance and postcode. That’s why we will unapologetically continue to target our investment into places where it can make the biggest difference, and on the groups who have most to gain.”
Download Rise’s report with the latest data on activity levels in the North East.
Find out more from Sport England about the Active Lives report.