Sector ‘must do more’ to take into account girls’ health needs

A cross-party committee of MPs has said that sports and physical activity ‘must do better’ to provide kit and equipment that has been properly researched and designed for the specific health and performance needs of women and girls.

The Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) published its latest report – titled Health Barriers to Girls and Women in Sport – on 5 March.

In it, the WEC said women and girls face distinctive health and physiology-related barriers to participation in, and enjoyment of, sport and physical activity, from early years to post-puberty.

It also claimed that existing programmes “do not yet go far enough” and are “yet to reverse alarming downward trends in girls’ enjoyment of PE”.

To tackle the inequalities and “health barriers”, the WEC report makes a series of wide-ranging recommendations to tackle the issues.

These include setting out key priorities for research, actions to increase availability of suitable, female-specific sportswear/ equipment and steps to achieve equal representation of women, as authors and study participants, in the field of sports and exercise research.

One of the major calls made by WEC was for the DCMS to establish a taskforce to develop a long-term strategy to tackle sportswomen’s health and physiology-related issues. On the taskforce, the WEC wants to also see UK Sport, the UK Sport Institute, women’s health and fitness experts – including The Well HQ – sport and exercise research institutes and the UK divisions of leading sportswear and sporting goods brands.

As an example of the issues faced by women, WEC chair, Caroline Nokes MP, highlighted the “slow response” to the high number of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries suffered by female footballers.