Celebrating the importance of sport and physical activity on children’s mental health

Mental health has been at the forefront of not just our minds at England Athletics this week but the world, with World Mental Health Awareness Day celebrated this Tuesday. Alongside key stakeholders from the sporting sector and MPs, we came together in Liverpool on World Mental Health Day to launch a new open letter to government to place physical activity as a means of supporting and preventing mental health issues at the forefront of their policy making decisions.

We caught up with some key players in the sporting community to find out how they have been affected by mental health challenges, and why running can have such a positive impact.

The importance of getting the best start in sport

At the Tokyo Olympic Games when we saw the Hannah Cockroft OBE storm to take her seventh Paralympic title, you may think she has always been a sporting star, but that’s not the case.

"At school my version of PE was sitting on the sidelines watching and I didn’t find sport or meet another disabled person until I was thirteen. Now I look back I realise how lonely I was and immediately segregated."

"If I hadn’t had a proactive PE teacher sick of watching me on the sidelines, I would have never found wheelchair basketball and then eventually wheelchair racing." "I didn’t start out to become Paralympic champion, I started because sport gave me a sense of freedom and independence I had never had."

Despite having to find sporting opportunities for himself outside of school, Nathan acknowledges the power of engaging children early.

"I was lucky my parents would always seek out opportunities for me, but I speak to children now who aren’t getting these opportunities and it breaks my heart. You never see a child doing sport not smiling, it improves their mental health and keeps them happy."

"I was lucky my parents would always seek out opportunities for me, but I speak to children now who aren’t getting these opportunities and it breaks my heart. You never see a child doing sport not smiling, it improves their mental health and keeps them happy."

Isolating students in mainstream education will hopefully be a thing of the past as the PE coordinator from Pleasant Street Primary School in Liverpool explained.

"When I was at school and you forgot your kit, you would have to sit on the side. If you misbehaved in lessons, you wouldn’t be allowed to play football and that is something which does not happen at Pleasant Street School. You would never say a child has to sit out of English or Maths for forgetting their book and we need to get the message out that physical education is just as important, if not more than those other subjects."

Managing mental health at elite and club level athletics

When you are at the top of your game and in the public eye, being able to perform under immense pressure doesn’t come without its own set of mental barriers. Training prepares athletes for big races, but also helps to keep them mentally and physically healthy.

"The value of physical activity to mental health is huge and as an athlete I have been through the highs and lows,"

explained Jonny Mellor, 2:10 marathon runner. “Running is one of the few sports where you can go out and do it on your own, get into your own headspace and think things through. Injuries can be tough but you need to focus on the rehab and coming back stronger from it.”

Injuries are not limited to elite athletes, and Liverpool Running Bugs ensure that their runners don’t get left behind when they get a niggle as Tracey Carr explained:

"We tell our runners to come down to the club or parkrun when they are injured to either walk with us or help out. Each month we do a #RunAndTalk run where the club completes a 5k together, it really is amazing to see 70-80 runners as one. We then always go for a brew together afterwards to give people the chance to chat to each other. It is important to remember if you had a sore knee, you would do something about it and our mental health Is the same."

Sport at the forefront of young people’s lives

There have been some strides in the correct direction in getting young children active through schools and in local communities but there is still a very long way to go.

"Since we hosted the Paralympic Games in 2012, 40,000 hours of physical education have been cut from the school curriculum,"

“At Youth Sport Trust we have a very simple mission that we want every child to enjoy the life changing benefits of playing sport. Unhappy, unhealthy children do not learn."

explained Youth Sport Trust CEO, Ali Oliver MBE.

"It doesn’t matter how much Maths and English we throw at them, - they are broken and need repairing and we can achieve this by winning over the hearts and minds of those in government with more PE in the core curriculum.”

Influencing change

Alongside key partners this week we launched our open letter to the government, to ensure that children have the opportunity to be active, happy, mentally and physically healthy.