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Sport England today unveiled its campaigning strategy to increase physical activity and participation in sport – and reduce the health and obesity time bomb facing the nation.

Following the success of Sport England’s four-month pilot in the North East, Everyday Sport, a campaign designed to encourage people to build physical activity into their everyday lives, will be launched nationally in the autumn.

The campaign will be backed by public and private sector stakeholders, who want to make a positive impact on participation levels and the health of the nation. Sport England’s strategy to increase participation follows international best practice. In countries such as Finland, Canada and Germany, the combination of high quality facilities, significant investment in clubs, coaches and volunteers, underpinned by campaigning and performance measurement, has increased participation.

The Everyday Sport pilot was featured in the Department of Health’s White Paper, Choosing Health. It was highlighted as an example of how to communicate the benefits of physical activity, to change people’s attitudes towards getting active, and encourage them to make changes to their lifestyles.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Fiona Adshead, said: "The recent Choosing Health White Paper identified physical activity as a key priority and I welcome Sport England's efforts in this area. I shall be watching the progress of the Everyday Sport campaign with interest as it rolls out nationally."

Roger Draper, Chief Executive of Sport England, said: “The Everyday Sport campaign in the North East was a huge success, with the number of completely inactive people – a high risk group for health problems - reduced by five per cent and a seven per cent increase in those intending to get active. Everyday Sport reached hundreds of thousands of people with a powerful message that they could become more active in many different ways.

“Independent research confirmed the effectiveness of the campaign and presented us with a powerful case for now taking Everyday Sport nationwide. Campaigns of this nature are an absolute priority for Sport England in helping us to increase participation by one per cent a year,” he added.

“We plan to link our campaign in with the public and private sectors whose objectives are similar to our own. The North East pilot demonstrated the power of working with companies, local authorities, schools, charities and the sports themselves to deliver behaviour change.”

Commenting on the national launch, Richard Caborn, Minister for Sport said, “Campaigns like this are very important in supporting our efforts to drive participation up. This national campaign will help show people easy ways to build more activity into their everyday lives - whether it is taking the stairs instead of the lift, or getting off the bus one stop early and then walking the rest of the way to work. Activity is something we can all build into our lives, and feel better for it.”

An extended pilot, linked to www.activeplaces.com, the database of 15,000 sporting facilities, will be launched in the North East in the summer before Everyday Sport is rolled out across the country in the autumn. Sport England will be working closely with the private sector to leverage financial and in-kind support to boost the campaign coffers. Each of Sport England’s nine regions will work with their health, sport and activity partners to integrate Everyday Sport into their communities. The campaign will include events, community involvement and PR activity in every region, backed up with TV and billboard advertising in selected regions.

Notes to Editors

Everyday Sport 2004 The campaign ran in the North East from June to September and involved TV, billboard and poster advertising, on the ground PR, events and community involvement. This included businesses, MPs, local authorities, councillors, schools, sport and recreational clubs and national governing bodies.

Campaign activities included the Everyday Sport Office Games (where employees earned bronze, silver and gold medals, depending upon their Everyday Sport activity), Ban the Lift Week (where companies encouraged those who could to take the stairs instead of the lift) and Have-A-Go sessions (where people of all ages were invited to try out new sports and activities – from tennis, football and rugby to belly dancing, yoga and dog walking).

Everyday Sport, which was shown in the research to be interpreted as a physical activity campaign and not necessarily a sport campaign, has received recognition from the Department of Health for its efforts to encourage people to take up active and healthy lifestyles. The campaign was commended in the Public Health White Paper, Choosing Health and was highlighted as playing a major role as Sport England works to improve public health in partnership with the Department of Health.

www.sportengland.org