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30-year report shows Australian children at greater risk on fitness

Xinhua, December 9, 2015 Adjust font size:

Research conducted over a 30-year period has revealed that today's Australian primary school children are struggling with basic motor skills like hand-eye coordination, and are showing low fitness levels.

The program has tested the five to 13-year-olds of Western Australia for the past 30 years.

Sports Challenge Australia chief executive Doctor Garry Tester, who doubles as a professor at the University of Western Australia (UWA)'s School of Sport Science, has been conducting the program, which charts a child's physical capabilities since the 1980s.

"So we test things like a 12-minute run, how many sit-ups they could do in 60 seconds and catching and throwing," Tester told the Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC) on Wednesday.

The test operates under a points system. Back in the 1980s, Australian kids who took the test averaged a score of just above 100 -- now scores of 70 to 80 have become the norm.

"We use a very famous test so a four-lap run of a 400m oval, so 1,600m, and then we measure how quickly children do it," he said.

"In 2015 children are 250m behind where they were back in 1980.

"In the United States it's around 350m behind so this parallels the obesity epidemic occurring in the community."

Tester said the results were very "worrying" and he believed that the disturbing trend was partly responsible for Australia's obesity crisis.

He said the best way to combat the problem was to target children by creating an environment where physical education was a fun part of school rather than a chore.

"I believe if we don't do something about getting it onto the agenda in primary schools there will be a worldwide epidemic," he said.

"We see it in adults and it's far too late. We really have to get the attitude and the behaviors right in the primary schools."

Earlier this year, an Australian report, backed by the Cancer Council and National Heart Foundation, found only 24 percent of secondary students got the bare minimum 60 minutes of physical activity each day. Endit