The first one, published on sportsmanagement.co.uk, reports the results of a survey commissioned by UK Active. Over half of the respondents, of which there were 2,271, said their main motivation for exercise was to boost their mental health.
Physical activity is one of the best ways to boost your mental health and mood and if you have to choose between just doing some exercise vs participating in community sport, then I recommend choosing community sport every time. There are significant additional benefits to your mental health when we participate in sport, compared with just being physically active.
The ability to interact with others, share burdens, talk things through, gain inspiration and understanding that we aren’t the only ones feeling like this are all incredibly helpful to us maintaining our mental health.
I think it is fantastic that so many people are starting to focus on their mental health and are aware of the positive impact physical activity has on our minds, as well as our bodies.
The second one comes to us from Japan. Published on nippon.com, the article details plans by the Japan Junior Sport Club Association (JJSA) to combat the decreasing rate of participation in sports clubs by addressing coach and parent behaviour.
They are doing this by promoting the roughly translated initiative of ‘Coaches must not get angry’. A winning at all cost attitude by parents and coaches has removed the players enthusiasm for taking on new challenges, their independence, opportunities to learn and their joy.
With reports of players being forced to lose weight so they can play down a grade it was time to do something and Masuko Naomi, the General manager of JJSA is making big changes.
Of special note, is the structural change to more align elementary schools with junior sporting clubs to both build and strengthen the community as well as utilise school infrastructure, that might be otherwise unused over the weekends.
By bringing the joy back to the sport as well as community building by having sport teams linked with school groups, the players are more likely to be retained in their sport, which will be a great outcome for them as well as the clubs themselves.
What ways could your club collaborate with other sports or schools or organisations to strengthen the community and their connection to the club?
Sport and exercise save the Australian health system more than they cost in injuries
Australians saved the health system more than $321 million in a single year by participating in sport and other forms of physical activity, according to a report released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).
Physical inactivity cost the Australian Health care system $2.4B AUD in 2018-19. This is made up of $1.7B in direct spend on health conditions due to physical inactivity and $763m indirectly on other risk factors caused by inactivity.
On the other hand, physical activity prevented $1.7B AUD in health care spending primarily due to lowered blood pressure and associated diseases and improved bone mineral density and reduced fracture costs.
There was, of course, a cost to the health care system for all the sport and physical activity we did with $1.2B AUD spent on injuries and other physical activity related issues. In future, hopefully we can reduce this figure through better injury management practises.
What was most interesting to me was where we saved spending due to physical activity: Number 1 was fall prevention. Number 2 and three were depression and anxiety. From there the list went: Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, bowel cancer and breast cancer. This relates back to the first article about just how important being physically active and participating in sport is to our mental health, as well as physical.
Link to the report here.
Lifelong Sport 
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