{"id":6498,"date":"2015-12-15T12:56:30","date_gmt":"2015-12-15T12:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fitproblog.mysites.io\/sport-is-beautiful\/"},"modified":"2015-12-15T12:56:30","modified_gmt":"2015-12-15T12:56:30","slug":"sport-is-beautiful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/sport-is-beautiful\/","title":{"rendered":"Sport is beautiful"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>FitPro recently attended the #LIKEaGIRL conference hosted by Women\u2019s Sports Net at the University of Hertfordshire, an event that aimed to get to the core of activity and sport for girls.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The conference showcased informative spokeswomen, including Badminton England\u2019s project manager Jenna Smith, who shared the organisation\u2019s new initiative \u2018Smash Up\u2019 to get more girls interested in playing the sport. Feedback on why girls aren\u2019t interacting with badminton included the comments, \u201cThere\u2019s no one to go with\u201d and \u201cIt\u2019s something we do in PE when we can\u2019t go outside to play proper sports,\u201d as well as the suggestion that it\u2019s a sport for parents. Smash Up is a modern \u2018mashed up\u2019 mix of bass-line pumping and big hitting that makes casual court time a place where you set the tempo and where the unexpected can happen. Smash Up is currently in 1,200 venues and engages 40,000 young people (56% girls). The initiative is aimed at 13-16 year olds.<\/p>\n<p>Elizabeth Rodgers, director of sport at Sheffield High School for Girls, revealed a few barriers faced by the girls at her school. They were said to turn their backs on sport due to a \u201cfear of embarrassment\u201d, with girls afraid they \u201cweren\u2019t good enough\u201d. \u201cSweating\u201d and \u201cnot being allowed to wear what feels comfortable\u201d also featured highly on the restrictions list. Interestingly, we learned what would encourage girls to come back. \u201cIf the coach listens to me\u201d and \u201cthe coach cares about my development\u201d were just some of the popular comments made. Rodgers has focused attention on creating \u201cinnovative, varied and functional sports sessions and, when some of the year nine pupils were asked what they would like for Christmas, they responded with a swegway and a Fitbit fitness wrist strap\u201d \u2013 steps in the right direction it would seem.<\/p>\n<p>Woman in Sport and Exercise (WISE) is a task force set up by the University of Worcester to advocate gender equality in all areas of the sport and exercise domain. Vanessa Jones and Clare-Marie Roberts revealed some stark facts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Currently there are two million fewer women taking part in sport than men in every age group<\/li>\n<li>The UK is in the top 10 in Europe for inactivity among young women<\/li>\n<li>13 million women in England report a desire to play sport<\/li>\n<li>Six million are currently inactive (O\u2019Keefe, 2015; Sport England, 2014)<\/li>\n<li>Research suggests that physical activity levels drop among university-age females<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Listen to the #LIKEaGIRL radio broadcast via the BBC Radio 4 <em>Today<\/em> programme here:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/p039c47j\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/p039c47j<\/a><\/p>\n<h4><strong>Q&amp;A with Danielle Sellwood, visual director at Women\u2019s Sport Trust<\/strong><\/h4>\n<h4><\/h4>\n<p><strong>Olivia Hubbard:<\/strong> <strong>Your presentation at the Women\u2019s Sports Net #LIKEaGIRL conference discussed social media and body image. Is the media industry using sex to sell sport and what effect is this having on young, impressionable girls who should be looking up to these women as role models?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Danielle Sellwood: <\/strong>Using sexy imagery to sell something is nothing new and especially in the area of sports marketing \u2013 it exists for both men and women. However, there\u2019s lots of research that proves that sex doesn\u2019t sell sport, it just sells that individual person.\u00a0 Luckily things are changing, but it\u2019s slow to improve in some areas like the surf industry.<\/p>\n<p>The problem for women in sport over men is that selling yourself as a sex symbol is often the only route available, whereas a man will be respected for his sporting ability and success way before his sex appeal. For women on the whole, it\u2019s really hard to get recognition and media coverage so, if the small amount of press out there only celebrates the sexiness of the woman, then it sends a message that we value sex appeal over sporting ability. Clearly this is a negative thing for many reasons but, for young women and girls, it is especially damaging, which is why we at the Women\u2019s Sport Trust promote all the positive reasons for getting involved in sport.<\/p>\n<p><strong>OH:<\/strong> <strong>What makes Reebok\u2019s Be More Human campaign a positive one?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>View the video here:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aNu1TubuzSU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aNu1TubuzSU<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>DS:<\/strong> This campaign celebrates being strong, enjoying the challenge of sport and not being afraid to give something a go. I love the anti-selfie angle and the fact that it heavily promotes the positive experience of taking part in sport. The message is about enjoying the experience rather than worrying about how you look \u2013 which is great from such an influential brand.<\/p>\n<p><strong>OH: Which campaigns out there on the web cause you great alarm?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>DS:<\/strong> There are some terrible examples in the surf industry \u2013 just google \u2018surfer girl\u2019 and you\u2019ll come across a load of suggestive imagery of young women in bikinis and very few of them actually surfing. There are some really bad examples in the cycling world too, but the good thing is that because of social media we can make a noise when we see something we don\u2019t like. Just recently, Colnago, a really respected bike brand, put out a sexist tweet and the response was overwhelmingly negative from both men and women.<\/p>\n<p><strong>OH: Tell me about the Sport is Beautiful campaign. What\u2019s in the pipeline for this campaign?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>DS: <\/strong>We launched in January this year with an exhibition at KPMG in London \u2013 the exhibition was a curated mix of the best photography out there and we promoted all the images and photography to the wider world via our social media channels. We\u2019ve since started commissioning our own imagery and some of this is going to be available in the New Year (for free) to schools, universities and clubs.<\/p>\n<p>Basically we want to make inspiring imagery as widely available, and as visible, as possible. We are also working on some local heroes projects, which are about promoting sportswomen within their own community and using the high street as our gallery. This will be starting in spring 2016 in the East Midlands and hopefully Bristol too \u2013 so it\u2019s going to be a busy year!<\/p>\n<p><strong>You can follow Women\u2019s Sport Trust via their social channels here: @Sport_Beautiful and @WomenSportTrust. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For more about\u00a0Colnago&#8217;s controversial tweet, visit\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.co.uk\/2015\/10\/27\/cycle-firm-colnago-issues-grovelling-apology-sexist-tweet_n_8397072.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">huffingtonpost.co.uk\/2015\/10\/27\/cycle-firm-colnago-issues-grovelling-apology-sexist-tweet_n_8397072.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For more info about #LIKEaGIRL, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsnet.co.uk\/corefirst\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wsnet.co.uk\/corefirst\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Top image credits:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Left: Kate Richardson-Walsh photographed by Sean Malyon for WST\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Right: Kelly Edwards photographed by Lukasz Warzecha for WST<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FitPro recently attended the #LIKEaGIRL conference hosted by Women\u2019s Sports Net at the University of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[564,565,566,137,567,520,568,238],"class_list":{"0":"post-6498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news-features","8":"tag-badminton","9":"tag-body-image","10":"tag-danielle-sellwood","11":"tag-featured","12":"tag-likeagirl","13":"tag-social-media","14":"tag-sport-is-beautiful","15":"tag-womens-sports-trust"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}