As the four-yearly sporting frenzy of the Olympics gets under way in Beijing (see also Alliance Alert, 'Smoking's out at the Beijing Olympics', click here >>), the UK government is developing fitness initiatives around the next Olympic Games, to be held in London in 2012. The government’s aim is for 1 million people in the UK to be doing more sport by 2012/13, as armchair athletes are inspired into sporting action.
The evidence from the Games in Atlanta, Sydney and Athens is that they failed to encourage long-term higher participation in sport, and also failed to achieve promised employment and social housing benefits (according to a report by UK think-tanks, the IPPR and Demos) – so the hope is that London can reverse this trend.
The plan is for the initiatives to have a significant impact on public health, lasting well beyond the timeframe of the Games themselves. Sport England, a public body encouraging greater participation in sport, will be visiting schools and universities, and the government will be investing £75 million in an advertising campaign aimed at making families healthier. From 2009, there will be a pilot of subsidised gym and fitness club membership in deprived areas, and practice nurses are being trained to set exercise goals and follow-up with progress of patients.
The Olympic Park is already the scene for one health intervention – the 9,000 workers involved in building the stadium and other sporting centres are having their BMI, cholesterol and blood pressure checked, to assess long-term health needs.
Source: Nursing Standard, 6 August 2008.