Ten thousand steps and more. What if the school uniform, which is barely being tested in France, was a barrier to physical activity? Recent work does not argue for its generalization. Researchers from the University of Cambridge, UK, studied data from nearly 1.1 million children aged 5 to 17 worldwide, in 135 countries. According to the results of their work, published in Journal of Sport and Health ScienceFebruary 15we see that, in countries where the majority of schools require compulsory uniforms, fewer young people tend to respect the sixty minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) . “The proportion of those who follow the recommendations is 16% in countries where the wearing of uniforms is common and 19.5% in countries where the majority of schools do not require the wearing of uniforms”specifies Mairead Ryan, researcher in the department of epidemiology at the University of Cambridge, who coordinated this work.
This difference is even more marked for girls in primary school. Furthermore, the gap between girls and boys is greater in high-income countries where uniforms are compulsory, than in middle- or low-income countries. A 2021 study highlighted that the uniform discourages British teenage girls from participating in certain activities, wearing a skirt deterring them, for example, from doing cartwheels. “Other data also suggests that primary school-age girls are more active and less sedentary on days when they are not in their usual uniform”, researchers also point out.
However, uniform or not, less than half of the world’s children and adolescents comply with WHO recommendations; only half of boys and a third of girls aged 6 to 17, according to the 2022 edition of the “Report Card » from the National Observatory of physical activity and sedentary lifestyle (Onaps). The gap, constant between boys and girls, appears early, between 2 and 6 years old, and widens with age. At the same time, a sedentary lifestyle is reaching alarming levels, with screen time continuing to increase.
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It is for this reason that the French government has declared physical and sporting activity a major national cause and is trying to generalize the practice of thirty minutes of daily physical activity in primary schools. After reading this study, one might wonder whether the plans to wear uniforms mentioned recently do not risk thwarting this policy.
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