Research

Schools project encourages outdoor play

Researchers from the University are working with two Colchester schools to improve pupils’ fitness and behaviour by increasing participation in outdoor activities.

The aim of the project, funded by Heart Research UK, is to tackle health and behaviour problems through engaging pupils in outdoor play.

Led by researchers at the Centre for Sports and Exercise Science at the University, up to 200 pupils at each school will take part in fun outdoor activities ranging from skipping and frisbee to orienteering.

Lead researcher Dr Caroline Angus explained: ‘Four out of ten children are overweight or obese by the time they leave primary school, and more than a third of under-10s fail to meet recommended exercise levels. Nowadays children have less access to safe outdoor play and the amount of time children spend playing outdoors has almost halved in the last 20 years.
 

‘The aim of this study is to find new ways to encourage children to be more active and develop strategies to help schools to increase physical activity and interaction with nature.’
 

The project will provide a total of 12 weeks of activities, with different activities running for a two week period, spanning winter and summer. Before the activities got underway the pupils undertook a range of tests to establish basic health, fitness and activity measures.
 

The emphasis of the project is on undertaking ‘green exercise’, that is physical activity which takes place outdoors in contact with green space. The two schools have been chosen to compare one in an urban area (Willow Brook Primary School in Colchester) with one in a rural location (Langenhoe Community Primary School).

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Better results with Jamie’s dinners

When Jamie Oliver launched his ‘Feed Me Better’ Campaign in 2004, some were sceptical about the impact it would have.

But researchers at Essex have shown that Jamie’s efforts didn’t just help pupils eat healthily, it also resulted in them doing better at school, and is helping cut absenteeism. This study by Michele Belot, a Research Associate at the Institute for Social and Economic Research, and Jonathan James, in the Department for Economics, showed ‘substantial’ positive effects on Key Stage 2 scores in English and science.

The Essex team analysed the results of more than 13,000 children in Greenwich from 2002-07. Pupils who sat exams in 2006-07 were on the new diet for at least 12 months and, after researchers had adjusted for an upward trend in pass rates, they found the number of pupils reaching levels four or five had risen by up to 8 per cent in science, and 6 per cent in English. There was also a small improvement in maths results.

Jamie Oliver’s highly-publicised Channel 4 campaign to improve school dinners introduced drastic changes in meals offered to pupils in Greenwich, where he helped schools shift from low-budget processed meals high in saturated fat, salt and sugar, towards healthier options.

Commenting on the team’s findings for Wyvern, Jamie Oliver said: ‘The research results are fantastic as it’s the first time a proper study has been done into the positive effects of the Feed Me Better campaign and it strongly suggests we were right all along. Even while doing the programme, we could see the benefits to children’s health and teachers - we could see that asthmatic kids weren’t having to use the school inhalers so often, for example. We could see that it made them calmer and therefore able to learn'.

‘It’s just yet another piece of evidence that we need to move faster in terms of improving take-up of nutritious, tasty home cooked school meals across the country'.

The ISER study compared the Greenwich results with those of Key Stage 2 pupils in seven other London boroughs that did not have the celebrity chef’s meals.

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Researching race

A new report commissioned from Lucinda Platt at the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) shows there is a new and growing diversity among young people that makes the very concept of black and white harder and harder to define.

The report produced for the Equality and Human and Rights Commission, indicates that the percentage of young people from ethnic minority backgrounds is on the rise, as is the number of young people from families with mixed heritages. According to the report, if current trends continue, ethnic minorities and those from mixed race backgrounds will make up an increasingly large proportion of the population in the future.

Some of Dr Platt's main findings were that 20 per cent of young people under the age of 16 are from an ethnic minority background, compared to 15 per cent of the total population. In addition, three percent of children under 16 are mixed race, compared to 0.5 percent of adults, while nearly ten per cent of children under 16 live in a family with heritages from more than one ethnic group.

The report also showed that younger people from most ethnic backgrounds are more likely to be in mixed race relationships; ten per cent of 16-29 year olds, compared to eight percent of 30-59 year olds.

A spokesperson for the Equality and Human Rights Commission said the report showed that Britain’s diverse culture was becoming all the more fascinating and inter-connected, describing the findings as a reason to celebrate.

Lucinda Platt interviewed by CNN

The report’s findings were published exclusively in The Observer newspaper and generated widespread media interest with Dr Platt being inter viewed by BBC News and CNN.

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Also in the printed February edition of Wyvern:

• Volunteer to read between the lines
• €4.5 million grant for Essex-led research