Statistics and Evidence

Most of the evidence for monitoring young people’s physical activty levels in this country is very recent. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is planning to publish Promotion of Physical Activity in Children (links to website) following its current review, in January 2009.

Walk England will be show casing this publication then. Meanwhile their review of the available evidence on Active Travel (links to PDF Doc 360KB) suggested that curriculum related interventions, coupled with initiatives such as walking buses and walk to school weeks can increase the amount of walking to and from school.

According to recent Department for Health research (links to PDF Doc 594 KB) 'Promoting safe and healthy journeys to school which in turn can also help to reduce the use of the car and impact of the 'school run'. The Department plan to launch a campaign to tackle childhood obesity very shortly which will include recommendations for physical activity.

Research carried out on adolescent school children exploring patterns of active commuting.

How far is too far? Links to PDF Doc 313 KB