Girls get moving
GIRLS around South Gippsland are encouraged to get moving with the Federal Government’s new Girls Make Your Move campaign.
Minister for Health Sussan Ley said the campaign was launched last month after new research showed nearly 60 per cent of girls aged 15 to 17 reported undertaking little to no exercise or physical activity compared to one third of boys.
“This campaign was a fun way to encourage young women in their teenage years to build their bodies as they are growing,” she said.
“The research is telling us around the late primary to early high school age girls first engage in some form of physical activity within peer groups. And if that first experience is not enjoyable the idea of exercise and sport also can become a negative.”
Local schools are taking steps to increase physical activity for females with a range of alternative sports activities on offer.
Mary MacKillop Catholic Regional College sports coordinator Bernard Lumsden said female students have raised the bar in terms of participation in physical activities and general fitness.
“We have a number of girls only phys ed classes. They run the same theory and content as the boys’ classes but it is run as a single sex class in order to be more accessible for girls,” Mr Lumsden said.
“We have equity in access to school sports and all house sports for both girls and boys, and they all participate in at least one phys ed class a week.”
Mr Lumsden said he believed social expectations for young girls were often linked to their physical inactivity.
“I think boys often get judged by what they do for sport. They are often asked about their participation in football whereas girls often receive comments about their appearance. We do discuss these concerns in our theory classes and we also run a pastoral program which explores body image and body constructs,” he said.
“We have a very high participation of girls in sports here at Mary MacKillop. It is going really well here and a lot of that comes down to the school community and how our students support each other.”
Mary MacKillop Catholic Regional College celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8 with a range of alternative sports activities for students.
“We ran an AFL clinic for the girls and Dane Herbert of Lions Boxing came down to conduct a workshop,” Mr Lumsden said.
“We want to offer sports that are not just traditional for gender roles. We want girls to recognise there are alternative pathways.
“Our girls here tend to buck the trend and their fitness profiling does hold its own against historical data. We are really happy with where our girls are at.”
Keeping fit: from left, Mary MacKillop Catholic Regional College’s Brianna Cicala, Zali Hill, Ellie Robjamt and Kaitlyn Funnell played volleyball on Friday as part of the school’s effort to keep female students active.
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Posted by Tayla Kershaw on Mar 16 2016. Filed under Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
