Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Official Report 740KB pdf

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Female Participation in Sport and Physical Activity

We move on to the third evidence session in our inquiry into female participation in sports and physical activity. This session will focus on children and young people. We welcome Rona Blackwood, head of programmes at the Children’s Parliament; Dr Mairi Stark, Scottish officer for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health; and, joining us online and remotely, Eilidh Paterson, inclusion and culture development co-ordinator at Scottish Student Sport.

Before we move on to our evidence session and ask questions of our guests, we are going to see a short documentary film, which was sent to the committee by Daisy Drummond; she made the video as part of her media studies exam at Drummond community high school, Edinburgh.

I thank Daisy Drummond so much for sending that film to us. In a previous life, I taught students how to make television programmes. I hope that Daisy follows through in her career, if that is what she wants to do, because she has certainly shown an immense amount of talent. What a great start to our session today; it has really helped to set the scene.

We move on to talking to our three witnesses. Daisy’s film has highlighted a lot of the issues from the perspective of young girls who enjoy sport and are actively involved in it; however, a lot of girls drop out of sport, around the age of adolescence in particular.

I will start with a constructive question. How do we address some of the issues that were highlighted in Daisy’s film by those girls who, obviously, recognise the issues but still get on with things? How do we start to address the girls out there who are maybe not as active, and get them to enjoy and engage more with sport and physical activity? I start with Mairi Stark.

The issue is extremely important. We need to look at things in the context of all age groups. We all understand the importance of physical activity to our long-term physical and mental health.

Some people may not remember how much physical activity we are supposed to do. How many people in this room do at least 150 minutes a week of proper activity? In addition, are the men in the room more likely to do it than the women ? I suspect that they are.

We need to address the issue through the ages. Toddlers are supposed to do three hours of activity a day, so they need good play parks, forest schools and lots of activities to do. Then we go into primary school and, again, we need more activities for all children, because there are fewer gender issues among younger children. We need to get them doing things—get them active. Then, when they become teenagers, they are already doing sports. We can then do specific things for that group.

I thought that the video was excellent—I really enjoyed it—but I note that one of the people in it said that their role model was their mother. Mothers are very important role models. I go running and mountain biking and do other sports with my teenager, but the fact is that not all teenagers have mothers who want to do all those things. We therefore need to get mothers involved and see what they want to do. There are, for instance, the women in golf programmes.

We need to put in place cheaper activities for women and we need to use the likes of jogscotland and so on. We need to invest in things that do not cost too much money. At the moment, sport is extremely expensive. If you want to do any sport, you suddenly need specialist shoes and other kit—even a basic aerobics class in a village hall costs £10 a session. It is just not accessible, and if young girls do not see their mothers or other women doing these things, they just think, “Och, it’s not for me. It’s something that boys and men do. It’s the men who walk up hills and do adventurous things.”

There is a whole generation that has not done any of these things; my own child has not been on an outdoor residential course—he has had no outdoor sport. What is the reason for that? It is Covid. For two years—his primary 7 and secondary 1 years—those residential courses were closed. There are guys who will never get a chance to sit in a canoe, go climbing or anything, because—tough luck—they missed it. There is no catch-up plan.

What about swimming lessons? Many more children are drowning in Scotland. We have just heard that Perth swimming pool is not going to close this year, but what about next year? What about other swimming pools? Can we afford to run them? Our own local pool has closed. The opportunities are just not there; children of both genders need them, and they need to be really good and cost effective so that everybody can afford them.

Once we get children—boys and girls—into doing more sport, we need to look at what is stopping teenagers. A lot of it is about girls needing different activities and facilities such as changing rooms; they need to be asked, “What will make a difference for you?” After all, we know that, if we can get teenagers into sport now, they will still be doing it in their 40s and 50s.

What came across very clear in Daisy Drummond’s film is that a lot of girls have an issue with doing sports with boys.

We need to have that separation at school. Some schools do not even have enough physical education teachers—my boy has not had PE for the past two weeks, because there are no teachers. Both sexes are just sitting on their iPads, doing something else, because no PE teachers are available. If they are not getting the 60 minutes of physical activity that they are supposed to get in school, where are they going to get that activity out of school? We need local clubs for them. If there were different out-of-school things just for girls that did not cost any money, which let them be with other girls and allowed them to do some sport, too, it would help.

Rona Blackwood, do you want to respond?

In a piece of work that we did recently on gender stereotyping in education and learning, we found access to activity and sport to be a huge issue. You will be glad to know that the girls to whom we spoke came up with quite a long list of solutions, many of which will resonate with what we have just seen in the film.

First of all, the girls felt that teachers, school staff, coaches and so on should get generic training on gender equality and stereotyping in order to really understand the negative impact of gendered language—for example, references to “strong” and “active” boys or “neat” girls.

As was said in the film, nationwide campaigning and awareness raising and inspirational role models go a long way towards inspiring girls to be active. Moreover, the curriculum should be reviewed so that more positive female role models can be included both there and in sport in the school setting.

The girls also said that friendships needed to be encouraged. One of the reasons why girls often do not take part in physical activity or sport is that they cannot do it alongside their friends or have no friends to do it with, which puts them off. It is important that we encourage and support friendships in the school environment, because if girls know that they can do physical activity alongside their friends, that will encourage them to do that activity.

Although the girls to whom we spoke said that, sometimes, they wanted to be separate from the boys, there was a real need for them to do sport and activities alongside boys, too, and to have integrated opportunities in that respect.

A really big issue is playground space. Boys often dominate playgrounds and playing fields, and if girls want to join in, they are not encouraged or allowed to. That is often not supported by the playground supervision staff, but it is allowed to happen, and huge swathes of the playground are taken over, often by football. Girls will often want to play but do not feel able to do so. The girls felt that trained supervision in the playground was really important.

Gendered uniform does not encourage physical activity, and the girls wanted that approach to uniforms to be removed. They wanted opportunities to have a go at sport. They wanted girls to be encouraged to try sports, for sports not to be seen as being for boys or for girls, and for girls to be encouraged to do football, basketball and boxing—sports like that. As was said in the film, it is important that there are things that really improve girls’ confidence. It was seen as important that we acknowledge and celebrate girls’ participation and engagement in physical activity and sport.

Further, it is not just in PE that children do sport. Children often talk about wanting to be more active during the school day. A lot of school days are very sedentary, but you can do Twister maths and lots of physical activity.

It is not just about sport, is it? It is about physical activity. Looking back on my life, this is an issue that I have seen for young women, but if young women are not particularly sporty or good at sport, that should not close off physical activity to them. We need to stress that.

It came across loud and clear from the girls and the members of the Children’s Parliament that they want to be active in their lives and in the school day. They want to be outdoors, even if it is wet, as it often is in Scotland. How can we get around that and still be active, even in the winter months? We work with children under 14 and their schools often do not have specialist PE teachers, but there is a real desire for more active learning and more time outside.

That is a really good point. Thank you for making it. I bring in Eilidh Paterson, who is participating online.

Good morning, everyone. It is great to be here, albeit virtually. Apologies for that, but I am co-delivering an event here in Lossiemouth, so I am unable to be with you in person.

I agree with what has been said so far. It is such an important issue and I thank Daisy Drummond for that incredible video. We at Scottish Student Sport have a very good media team—in case she is interested in joining that in the future.

The first thing that comes to mind on this issue is role models and visibility. Those are areas that we need to improve within the entire nation. What is seen as a physical female or as physically ideal certainly needs to be altered.

Parents, club leaders, staff, coaches, officials and volunteers can all play a role. The sporting sector is ginormous in terms of the volunteers that are needed to run a sport, never mind a variety of sports throughout the nation. The people who are running the clubs are hugely influential and the local impact of those roles should not be underestimated. It is important to ensure that leadership positions, such as coaches and club leaders, are diverse. It is important not only that there are females in those roles but that they lead male teams and not just female teams.

It is a really interesting topic and we at Scottish Student Sport have—[Inaudible.]. Such stereotypes are harmful to everybody. Nobody wins as a result of stereotypes in any sporting context, whether the stereotypes are about men and the strength element—where no one wins, because men feel like they are being overpressured—or about girls feeling underestimated, which is of no help to anybody.

Again, it is about visibility and what it means to be an active woman in Scotland. Girls do not have to be going out and winning gold medals every five minutes; it is actually just about sport and activity. Someone asked earlier what happens if girls do not feel that they are good at sport. The issue is what they think sport is, which can be an assumption that is based on what is around them. Actually, there is such a variety of sports out there—you can be standing still, moving very quickly, moving at a slower pace, and so on. Scottish Student Sport has 36 sports available for our students to take part in nationally. We have an array of opportunities for young people to take part in, alongside education, which is usually important.

Ultimately, we are all raised differently, across the nation, and what is on our doorstep varies from locality to locality, so it is about what we can do to support parents to ensure that how they raise their children—girl, boy or otherwise identifying—leads to all being able to have the opportunity to access sport.

11:15  

Thank you very much.

One of the things that stood out for me in the film was the fact that many girls in that long line-up said, in answer to the question about why they do not do sports, “Boys”. We have certainly heard about the comments and attitudes that lead to girls feeling embarrassed and sometimes ridiculed, which can be a huge barrier for them. How can we address that issue and change boys’ attitudes?

We can talk about it in schools. In the school that my boy goes to, kids get to choose whether they go in the boys’ group, the mixed group, or the girls’ group. Not all the boys are big physical rugby players and they do not all want to do those things either, so there is a middle path. It is about discussing things and kids doing sports together at a much younger age, before the gender issues become involved. If kids have been mountain biking, climbing or doing something for years, it does not matter whether they are male or female—the sport gradually goes with them.

Some team sports are much more for boys or for girls, so it is about giving kids opportunities to do lots of different sports that are not team sports and not necessarily traditional. Whenever the Olympics are on, many schools offer tasters of all the different sports. However, that only comes round once every four years, which leaves quite a long time in between. Why cannot schools offer all those different taster sports more often? That would allow kids to try things that they have never done before and give them opportunities to do something a bit different, which might fit. It is about showing boys and girls the kinds of sport that they can do.

Not all the boys fit into the cool rugby group at school either, so we are gender-pitching boys as well as girls. Some girls want to be in the rugby team—my boy is in a group of girls and boys, in which the only child who plays rugby is a girl. We need to get away from some of the stereotypes on both sides and encourage children to do lots of different activities, so that they find the right one for them.

Let us talk to the boys and find out how they are feeling about this. The little bit of work that we did with boys in the gender stereotyping project showed that they did not understand or relate to the girls’ experience of feeling excluded and dismissed. A sensitive job needs to be done with boys around understanding the impact of gender stereotyping on girls. We need to talk to boys and support them to understand the impact of some of their collective actions.

We really need to encourage friendships between boys and girls in our community and our school spaces, too, so it is not about boys doing this and girls doing that, and so that friendship and mutual respect exist between boys and girls from a young age.

Of course, that would have an impact not just on sport but on many things.

How our young boys perceive the issue is all learned behaviour, because not one boy is born with any of those conceptions. It is all learned behaviour—whether it is learned from their parents, their community or what they see on television or elsewhere—so I would ask who they are learning those conceptions from. Can we challenge and squash those conceptions, too, when we are speaking to young boys and men? In my submission, I noted that men and boys are a huge part of the process. We cannot make proactive strides towards equity if we do not have men and boys working alongside us. That is definitely a big area of work.

We should not blame the boys; we should ask where they are learning their attitudes. For example, there is the media. The world cup and the women’s world cup are completely different, and the amount of money that is invested in them is different. There is always an argument about investment and—[Inaudible.]—invest before we see any outcomes. I know that the Government has plans in that space to invest further in the future, but I would like that area of work to be pushed forward.

We could even have a video talking about the issues—like the one from Daisy Drummond—being shown on national television.

I think that my video has stopped working, convener.

We can still hear you—we turned off your video because the sound was lagging a little bit, and it is best if we can still hear you. You can keep going.

Okay—that is fine. I will keep going.

On bringing together young people, to go back to what Rona Blackwood said, there is sometimes no need to segregate boys and girls when it comes to activities in which they take part. Why are we segregating boys and girls from a young age? Is there any particular reason why young people need to be segregated? In physical education classes, they take part together. Segregation by gender sometimes encourages negative thoughts, instead of having people play together with the idea that they can play that particular sport very well, whether they are a boy or a girl.

We could look to education to bring in more diverse activities. One that comes to mind straightaway is a sport called ultimate Frisbee, which is about shooting a Frisbee into a net. We could look to that, rather than focus on sports that have a lot of gender stereotypes around them, such as rugby, football and netball.

All of that comes down to societal culture and learned behaviour, in my opinion.

I will bring in Emma Harper.

Good morning to youse.

I think that the question of stigma has already been answered. That issue came up when Stephanie Callaghan and I got some feedback from young women at the Mary Erskine school about their experiences of participating in sport.

Dr Stark, I am interested in what you said earlier about the need to start young. In 2012, we introduced the daily mile in Scotland. Has that initiative been sustained, and is it growing? Are schools still delivering a daily mile? It is so simple—the kids do not even need gym kit or trainers; they basically just get out of the classroom on days when there is nice Scottish weather, and both genders participate in a daily mile.

I am a great supporter of the daily mile; it is a really good initiative. However, one issue is that it depends on the individual primary school. I said to the headmaster of our local primary school, “Why don’t we do the daily mile in this school? It’s a great initiative.” He said, “I don’t think we need it here.”

It depends on the headteacher, so we need to get all the teachers involved and get buy-in from people. We cannot necessarily force people to do it. The Government could say that every child needs to do the daily mile, but with different individuals working in different places, we need to have buy-in from local communities.

I think that it is a great initiative, and we should be doing more things like that. For example, we should have forest schools in every nursery and primary school. Forest school education is great. We need more outdoor education to get children outside doing things and learning about their natural environment. Living in Scotland, we are very lucky in that regard. However, it is difficult to do those things unless we get local buy-in.

I have a question about other research, but I can always ask it later.

We will move on just now. I come back to Stephanie Callaghan, because we want to discuss community sport as well. Stephanie, perhaps you can lead off on that, and then I will bring in Gillian Mackay.

What are the most important improvements and changes that we could make to community facilities, infrastructure and spaces to meet the needs of women and improve safety? I put that question to Dr Stark first.

We need to be very aware that we are going through a cost of living crisis and that sport is really expensive. People have to pay their rent, buy food and pay their fuel bills and council tax, so for many families the money for sport is just not there. We need to do things that do not cost anything. We need to use every bit of green space that is available to have good play parks that are safe places to go. We need to have youth clubs and activities for young people that do not cost anything.

On that point about using green spaces, do you have any examples of where girls and women have successfully worked to co-create and design such spaces and that has increased the number of girls and women who use them?

We have a local gym that has been set up by women in our village. It was relatively cheap, and it runs CrossFit classes, which are mostly attended by women.

What about looking at outdoor spaces?

There are not many examples of where people have done things with outdoor spaces. There are places to do skateboarding and things such as that, but those activities are targeted more at boys. Where there are basketball areas, the boys tend to take over the area and the girls do not get a look in.

We need to be highlighting spaces and things for girls. The kind of gym equipment that can be used in parks, such as stationary bikes, and is available in some parts of Edinburgh would help, because it does not cost any money and people can use it outside.

We need to invest in local areas and make things much cheaper. It costs a fortune to go to a swimming pool now. Many children do not have access to doing anything. Mothers will put their child’s needs well before their own, so the likelihood of women doing sport as adults is far less, because they cannot afford £10 to go to the local aerobics class. It is just not affordable.

Does anyone else want to come in on that? I will bring in Eilidh Paterson—I do not want to leave her to last every time just because she is online. Eilidh, from a student perspective, does that resonate with you?

Absolutely. I have a quick statistic for the committee: at the moment, 51 per cent of our student population that is active in sport is female, so we have more female than male students taking part in sports activities at university and college. That is a great statistic and is very unusual for a multisport organisation.

The committee could look to the student sector for some best practice in encouraging young women to stay active during a transitional process in their lives, when they can also create good habits, friendships and strong lasting relationships. I encourage the committee to look into that.

Some of our university members provide free gym membership to all students—no matter what year they are in or what they are studying—as an incentive, which is absolutely brilliant. That is an investment in student wellbeing and reflects how the university leaders see sport and the results of sporting activity for students and their wellbeing. The students are being physically active, but the other benefits of that probably far outweigh the cost of the services that would be leaned on otherwise, such as counselling and mental health services and other peer support, which, as the committee knows, are very expensive.

That is a great area of work that we can highlight. However, I know that my community friends and colleagues would be tapping me on the shoulder to remind me that many local facilities are at risk of closing. I cannot speak for all localities, but I do not know how that is viewed and what priority sporting activity has in that space.

The issue is not only about sporting activity; it is about how we view that activity and about wellbeing, as opposed to the NHS incurring costs. By seeing it that way, we will possibly stop some NHS services being used and that expense being incurred. Investing now in young people and creating good habits and ways of life will benefit us all in the future, with regard to health costs.

11:30  

Absolutely. Having preventative measures is the very reason for our conducting the inquiry.

Rona Blackwood, would you like to come in on Stephanie Callaghan’s question?

It is important that we go back to ask children for their views. The co-production approach is important. We should ask children what they want, how they want it to happen, and what it looks and feels like for them to take a rights-based approach.

The cost of living crisis is having a huge impact on children’s anxiety and wellbeing: they are worried about their carers and mums and dads, and they are aware that they cannot take part in clubs and activities or ask for the cost of kit or uniforms. Costs and financial implications form a huge barrier to their participating.

If I may interrupt your questioning, Stephanie, I hear loud and clear that Mairi Stark is from a rural area where people have access to green space on their doorstep. However, Rona, in urban areas you must see that that is just not the case for a lot of children.

No, but I have recently been working with children in Shetland and the Western Isles who told me about the lack of good-quality play spaces in rural communities, which are often in disrepair and not fun places to be. Although they might have access to beautiful countryside, they often do not have facilities and clubs.

Okay. Stephanie, do you have a follow-up question, or shall I go to your colleagues?

No—that is fine.

We move to questions from Gillian Mackay.

My question comes off the back of Stephanie’s questions on facilities and how we maintain diversity in them, notwithstanding that some are up for closure because of budget cuts. I have heard from hockey clubs and various other clubs in my local area that 5G pitches are easier to rent but are not suitable for some sports. There could therefore be a slow creep into other sports that are more generally dominated by boys and men, thus shutting off some sporting diversity for others. Have you a view on how we might not only maintain that diversity of facilities but expand it to ensure that we have as wide a range of sports as possible available for people to try, as well as facilities that allow for general physical activity? As Emma Harper mentioned earlier, the Scottish weather is not always the most inviting for going out for a walk. We see that in cycles of people perhaps becoming less active over the winter compared with the summer.

We have to spend to save and invest in the basic sports and facilities. It is true that it costs a bit of money to let people have the opportunity to do things, but it improves their mental health. We have a mental health crisis that is costing millions, and we need to reduce that burden.

Yesterday, I saw a video clip of a 92-year-old woman who does Ironman triathlons, which is quite astounding. Research says that if someone is active and does strength training and so on throughout their life they will be a fit octogenarian, not an unfit one, which will save a fortune. If we can get people’s hip bones and legs strengthened by doing exercises, we will see fewer fractured hips and femurs, because those people will have better bones.

It is about spending to save. We need to think about the long term. Unfortunately, many matters that are discussed in Parliament are about what will happen at the next election. However, we need to think about what will happen to our young people over the next 60 to 70 years. It is not a short-term fix; it will take money, but it will be about spending in order to save in the long term.

Sporting facilities are not an area of specialism for the Children’s Parliament. Children tell us that they want a choice of physical activities and sports to take part in and that they feel limited when only football, hockey and sports that are traditionally more popular in Scotland are on offer. They say that they would like to try different sports and try ones that are not linked to gender, but that those facilities and opportunities are not there for them.

Girls often say that they will not know whether they want to do something if they cannot have a go. There is a need for far more “have a go” opportunities and for the facilities to be able to offer those.

That is a very good question. You are absolutely right about the Scottish weather, which causes us to lean on indoor facilities because playing outside in certain temperature is not enjoyable.

We should focus on building better indoor spaces, because many sports rely on having a hall. I know that my colleagues from sport governing bodies, if they were here, would be tapping me on the shoulder and asking to have their playing lines marked on those halls. We need lines in those halls so sports that can be played on them, and we need partnerships to ensure that the sports that already exist in communities are being facilitated. We should also consider why other sports are not being played, because they might appeal to a completely different demographic.

Looking at our roads would allow us to take cycling and active travel into account. Gillian Mackay will be happy to hear that many students love active travel. They have their green hats on and want to look after the planet as well as being active. Our roads are of utmost importance, because we do not want anyone to fall off their bike because of a pothole.

I go back to how sport is viewed societally and culturally. Factors such as active travel are not as much of a priority as they should be, and my students would back me up on that point. Expanding access to indoor facilities is important. We have fantastic community sport hub officers and active schools co-ordinators, who know their communities extremely well. I do not want to make a sweeping statement about the whole nation on their behalf, but I imagine that they know where gains could be made in their localities to ensure that we are facilitating for those who need facilities and are giving opportunities to those who do not yet feel catered for. That is important, too.

I will follow up on something that Dr Stark said, which others might have an opinion on. She talked about strength training. When I was at school, we did a lot of sport-based PE, but not much gym-based PE. We did not learn how to do a squat, a deadlift or any of those things. That is not for every child, but those exercises underpin much of the training required to get better at the sports that people are doing, and much of that is based in the gym. Are we doing enough of that? Most people now get some of their activity in the gym, but there is a lot of misinformation online. Do we need to do more for younger people, so that they can learn to do that safely? I learned a lot of how to do that properly from my peers at university, when I was in my late teens or early twenties. A big opportunity is being missed earlier in life.

It is really important for that group to do strength-based training.

I will give an example of gender bias. A local gym has been set up and the police are using that for some of their community activity. They take boys who are being disruptive at school to the gym during the school day to do strength-based activities as a way of trying to improve their behaviour. There was no suggestion that girls might get to learn strength training.

Doing strength training as a teenager and in your 20s and 30s is important, but all women in their 40s, 50s and 60s should still be doing strength training because it will keep our muscles strong and keep us well as we go into old age. We need to be doing that early.

Why are we not doing those initiatives for the girls as well as for the boys? Why is the strength training for the boys and not the girls? It is very niche for the girls but it should be much more for all girls, because they can gain a lot of positive mental health benefits from doing a bit of strength training.

We will move on to talking about health and wellbeing, which we have been talking about throughout; again, that is the impetus for this inquiry. In our first year after the election, we conducted an inquiry into children and young people’s mental wellbeing and physical health. That is why we thought that we would do something specifically on girls and women.

Good morning. Have Covid and the years of home schooling and remote learning had an impact on girls and young women in relation to puberty and body image? If so, what might we do to remedy that? I will put that to Dr Stark first.

Covid and home schooling had a really severe impact on young people, both boys and girls. We are seeing the run-offs of that in our clinics. Some children enjoyed home schooling, but it made them lose out on many activities, and many young people have simply not gone back to them—probably girls, in particular. They might have been doing gymnastics before Covid, for example, but they have not gone back.

We are also seeing increasing numbers of children who have eating disorders. Some children put on weight during lockdown and some lost weight, but we are definitely seeing more eating disorders, as well as more children who are struggling with their mental health.

We also have a big group of children who have never had any opportunities to do outdoor education, because they missed that during Covid. There could well have been sports that they really would have thrived in, but they never got the opportunity to do them and they never will, because they will not be able to afford it. It depends on what their parents do.

Some children thrived during lockdown. Some people had families who went out and did lots of activities with them, but some children simply stayed at home, played on their computers, did not go out and became less sociable. Lockdown was not the same for every child, but most children were affected by lockdown. The mental health effects of lockdown are significant and cannot be underestimated. Giving children more opportunities now than they had before and allowing them to do sports and activities will, I hope, help to restore some of what they have lost.

At the moment, most of the money and impetus are focused on adults rather than on children. People in the long Covid group on children are seeing children who have chronic fatigue and lots of difficulties, but the children’s group has had no money. We have not got off the ground yet and we are a year down the line. We need to have more investment in young people.

You are absolutely right. I absolutely agree with Dr Stark that not everyone’s experience during lockdown was the same. The same goes for our students. Because we stayed in touch virtually and were able to keep in touch with all our student leaders and volunteers, we were able to get an in-the-moment response from them.

Some of the experiences were positive in that it gave our student leaders an opportunity to be very innovative and do training and club activities online. Obviously that was not the same but, in a moment of crisis, it still offered the opportunity to bring people together to socialise and to share experiences, whether that was vocalising how they were feeling or sharing what they had been up to. That also really emphasised why sport and activity are important. The experience of being locked in our houses for a period of time differed for everyone; for example, some people were by themselves and some people had a large family and had no space to themselves. It really emphasised the need for hobbies and sport and why they are really important for communities to have.

Puberty was mentioned, and I know that there is a drop-off in participation around that age for young girls in particular. We have to continue to look ahead to that. There is an organisation called the Well HQ, which Scottish Student Sport will soon be partnering with, which does fantastic work in women’s health through educating coaches and leaders on this area of work. I just wanted to make the committee aware of that organisation.

11:45  

We need to encourage that age group of girls going through puberty to keep up their activities, even though things are changing. Their sport activity is the one thing that can stay consistent throughout their lives. They can obviously come and go and take part in other things, but we do not want them to feel that that activity needs to take a back seat because they are going through that change.

There are many taboo subjects around what products are being used and what support is being given to young people going through that experience. We need to be much more vocal about it; we need to talk about it. There is a whole student demographic who, I am sure, would want to be role models in this space as they share their experiences for all of our young people across the nation. We are happy to be of assistance there in the future, too.

We will look into the Well HQ—thanks for that tip.

I echo much of what has been said already. It is important to stress that coaches in particular would benefit from the training, support and guidance around children’s participation and children’s rights. With the incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, we are seeing that happening more and more in schools, although it is not necessarily reaching down into the community and sporting sectors, and children may tell us that they are getting shouted at or feel intimidated in certain sporting or physical activity sessions. It is really important to provide training and support for how to talk to and engage children in a relationship-based way.

I take it that a lot of people are volunteers.

Exactly.

So, the structure is not very formal.

Yes—exactly.

We saw from Daisy Drummond’s video that periods can be an issue. Some girls have a good day and some girls have a bad day. How can we educate more about periods? How can education be improved, so that periods become less of a barrier to being physically active?

The girls whom we spoke to said that periods are a huge barrier and that there is a lot of anxiety around periods and reproductive health; there is teasing and bullying around having your period. Boys do not always know or understand what is happening to girls when they are going into puberty and having their period.

Regarding physical activity and sport, girls sometimes tell us that going to the toilet—or not being allowed to go to the toilet at certain times—is stressful for them, or that the toilet or the changing facilities do not feel private or suitable for using sanitary products. You are absolutely right: that is an issue. Girls are saying some very positive things—for example, that seeing sanitary products in toilets is very good. Period pants are really good for being able to do physical activity, and girls have said that they like those types of products, which have really helped. It remains a concern, however: they want it to be talked about more openly and freely in the school space.

I do not know if anyone else wants to come in at this point; I have other questions from Paul Sweeney—or not?

My questions here have been covered; I have nothing further.

Okay. Eilidh Paterson wishes to come in.

I do not think that, societally, we have solved how periods are viewed in this nation, and I think that sport is an extra barrier to this point of conversation. We have a lot to do in Scotland to give our girls confidence in their bodies in what is a very natural, very necessary physical period. That is the first point: as a nation, we have not solved that. Secondly, sport is an extra barrier to that.

Having free sanitary products in public spaces is a brilliant step forward. College and university spaces count within that, and our students are always giving positive feedback about how that is a fantastic step forward for them. I therefore absolutely agree with Rona Blackwood’s point on that.

Sport is at the centre of culture, and if we want to achieve a culture shift in this area of work, sport can be an assisting driver in that. We have already seen some fantastic conversations about that.

Changing the colour of shorts is not necessarily a solution—we do not want anyone leaking, whether into white shorts or blue shorts. However, just having that thought process, intention and conversation is a step forward; that is the important bit. I do not think that we are yet at the point of solving the problem, but sport can be a driver in making the conversation more natural for boys and girls. I really think that, no matter who is around the table, everyone should be aware of this bodily process, as it affects everybody. It is hugely important and it should not be seen as something to be hidden—I should not have to put something up my sleeve to hide it because I do not want anyone to know that I am at a particular time of the month.

The student sector could possible be a driver in the role model piece of work.

As it happens, we want to talk about role models and social media. We move to Paul O’Kane.

Good morning. The video that we watched at the start of the evidence session really helped to set in context so much of what we are discussing. We heard a lot about role models and their importance in people’s lives. Let us explore that in the social media context and more broadly. What do you feel can be done to encourage more role models to share their stories in those spaces to encourage, in turn, girls and women to take part in sport?

The age group of children that we work with is the under-14s, who should not be on the social media channels that we are probably referring to; therefore, we have not done a huge amount of work on social media and physical activity and sport. That said, children often talk about the importance of having positive female role models in sport and in the broader curriculum beyond sport. They also talk about the negative impact on body image from the vision of what young women and girls should look like. As I said, given the age group of children that we predominantly work with, we have not dug deeply into that, although we have done work with children on social media and positive health and wellbeing.

There is an importance in having drivers in social media. It is not about saying, “Don’t engage with this; it’s bad”; it is about young people engaging with a variety of platforms once they are the appropriate age. We want to see positive story telling, positive apps and positive messaging around physical activity and sport, body image and girls’ confidence. Social media must be used as a force for good, as distinct from a force for bad. Perhaps my colleagues have more to add.

Having local role models is really important. The achievements of elite athletes are great and something to aspire to, but most teenagers think that they cannot do that. However, if they see that their mum, auntie and everybody else around them are cycling or doing other sport and enjoying it—it is not just about physical activity; it is about them enjoying those things and doing them socially with their friends—that is an extremely important role model. It is important to get women doing sports so that they can be role models for their children, and it is important for teachers and everybody else in the community to do it, too.

My final point is that it is not just about periods and menstruation; for older women, one of the big barriers to doing exercise is that they might pee themselves. Urinary incontinence is huge. It is not talked about; it is a bigger taboo than periods. The fact that you cannot run, even for a bus—“Mummy, can you not get that bus?”; “No, because I’ll pee myself”—is a daily issue that an awful lot of women have and do not talk about. We need to be talking about it and thinking about things such as Pilates classes being free and achievable and not something that only a small group of women can do, because they are essential.

If you cannot cough or sneeze or run for a bus, you are not going to want to do sport. It is about helping women who are older so that they can then be role models for their children, rather than have a situation where, once you are a certain age, you cannot do sport because you cannot actually move.

I think that a lot of women do not know how to fix that, or do not know what to do to deal with that issue. That came out in the submissions.

That is because the issue is not talked about.

I will bring in Eilidh Paterson.

I back up Dr Stark’s point—I absolutely agree that urinary incontinence in sport is not talked about enough. Dancers, trampolinists and anyone who jumps up and down in a sport will experience that, and from a very young age, actually. I would be happy to discuss the issue further at some point if the committee wishes to do so.

To go back to social media and role models, we at Scottish Student Sport are very aware of that issue—in fact, members could follow us on social media at @ScotStuSport, if they fancy doing that. On our pages, we have some great examples of role models, and authenticity in role models. That is exactly the point—it is about the intention of the social media. If it is authenticity, that is fantastic.

Obviously, our athletes and our influencers who are in the fitness or activity industry are already doing what they can to gain followers. In general, they are very aware of the diverse audiences and people who are vulnerable to being influenced negatively. The culture of social media on activity is definitely improving, although it absolutely is not as good as it should be. Obviously, there is a whole issue about safety and social media that I will not touch on today, but that certainly could be discussed in future. It is essential to promote authentic role models who are looking to make a positive change and have a positive influence on young people.

Thank you for those exchanges, which were helpful.

We have heard in evidence that it is on men to change their behaviour and attitudes, and that men need to influence their peers and how they behave. Do you have any reflections on that? In the social media space, do we need to encourage more male role models at national level to influence behavioural change, or is it more about the grass roots or a mixture of both? I have previously referred to some of the helpful statements that Andy Murray has made—most people would recognise that, although the issue goes much further. I am keen to get your sense of what we as men can do, because that is vital.

Women have to be confident and do this, but men need to help and facilitate. We have moved on. Women are now much more career oriented and they may well be doing a lot of the work and bringing money into the household, but many women still do most of the household chores and parenting. The man of the house might go off to his football training and the gym, and might go out with his friends at the weekend to play golf or some other sport, while the woman is at home looking after their young child. In that situation, the man has to say, “Actually, it’s your turn to do some sport with your friends—I’ll make dinner tonight so that you can go to that class, because I know you’d like to do that but you haven’t got time.”

We need society to become much more equal, but we are just not there. I look at what has happened in society and see that, actually, women seem to be overloaded, because they are now having to do everything. Men have to take on more of the home work, so that women have time to do some of these activities.

That came out when we spoke to women in Dunfermline. We went there to play basketball with women who were around my age, and many of them said that they had not done any sport since they left school or university, and they were now coming back to it in their late 40s. The caring responsibility was the main reason for that. I just wanted to mention that.

I will bring in Eilidh Paterson.

I thank Paul O’Kane for that question. Some brilliant campaigns already exist, such as Police Scotland’s “Don’t be that guy” campaign. We work with some fantastic masculinity organisations—their names are not coming to the top of my head right now, but I can submit information on that later.

It is not just about sport. Sport involves a small demographic within wider society, and how women’s role is seen within society is still led by stereotypes, to go back to what Dr Stark said. The “Don’t be that guy” campaign, which is about males challenging their peers, is a great example of the kind of work that I would like to see rolled out further.

12:00  

At the end of the day, it is all about kindness and being a good human. Sometimes it can be overcomplicated, but respect and kindness are at the forefront. From speaking to our students, I think that a lot of it comes down to questions around what masculinity is and how it is viewed. You mentioned Andy Murray, who is a great example of a positive role model. However, a lot of young boys and men are looking instead to particular men who have quite toxic views of the world and of women. When social media is brought into the mix, we see the good, the bad and the ugly going viral, and one thing leads to another.

The Government probably has a responsibility to share some positive campaigns like the “Don’t be that guy” campaign that are about peer-led support and conversations between men. I come from Thurso in the far north of Scotland, which is a very rural area. Men there do not talk about their feelings or talk to each other about how their day went, or ask how they really are. I am aware that that is a bit of a sweeping generalisation, but it is true in so many cases. The same probably goes for people at a lot of ages and stages of life, not just men in the 18-to-25 age group that I support.

I will bring in Sandesh Gulhane, who has a couple of questions on the subject.

I do, but before I start, I have another point to make. We were just talking about urinary incontinence. I would say to any woman who has urinary incontinence, “Please see your GP.” There is a lot that we can do, from bladder training to medications, but it could be a sign of something more serious, so they should not ignore it.

I come back to the issue of social media. My question is for Eilidh Paterson. What effect do you think social media have on young girls? Previously, when women’s football was taking place, people were posting disparaging videos. After the women’s European championship, however, they have all disappeared and women’s football has become quite a big thing. Nevertheless, what effect does such social media activity have?

My immediate reaction—although I do not have much research to back up what I am saying—is that the social media response has been overwhelmingly positive rather than negative. For example, during the women’s Euros, we saw a positive response to the England Lionesses. I know that the Scotland team was knocked out at an earlier stage, but I think that that story, and that particular group of girls—or players, I should say—captivated the nation as a whole. It was fantastic to see that shift.

In my opinion, the reaction on social media was positive. Again, however, there are some examples of women, especially in the elite athlete sector, being treated differently from men by the media. There are groups of activists online who like to highlight that, for all the right reasons. That can be seen as a negative influence, although what I see on social media will not necessarily be the same as what other people see, because I might be in a different audience.

However, the reaction was overwhelmingly positive during the women’s Euros. We have the women’s football world cup coming up, and the women’s six nations rugby championship is currently taking place. There are a lot of positive examples of elite athletes taking part in a diverse range of sports.

Again, however, I am aware that not every single young girl wants to see elite athletes—they might just want to see somebody going for a jog or cycle and not taking it all too seriously. It is great to have positive elite role models, but it is also good to have role models who are more realistic in their level of activity.

I want to look at inequalities too, focusing specifically on women and girls from ethnic minority backgrounds, and south Asian backgrounds in particular. It is quite difficult for people from south Asian backgrounds to progress in sport and to play a lot of sport, but it is particularly difficult for girls.

I come back to Eilidh Paterson. What part might role models have to play in that regard? Do you have any ideas on how to increase participation among girls who come from south Asian backgrounds?

Again, that is a brilliant question. I know that sportscotland is looking to come back to governing bodies and organisations such as mine on that, as the next step in the consultation process on race and ethnicity and the work on that that has been going on for the past couple of years.

In the student sector there is an incredible number of role models who would be able to do what you are suggesting and recommending. It is so important that we have diverse voices. I always talk about intersectional feminism: it is important that we think about every kind of woman when we are having a conversation on the topic. We have many diverse international students and diverse students from Scotland. We are very lucky that they all feel able to take part in sport while studying at university or college. Again, I recommend that the committee lean on the student sector in relation to its diverse population and the opportunities to demonstrate it. Those people exist; we just need to get to them and encourage them to make heard their voices.

Stephanie Callaghan has a question. It needs to be very succinct because Tess White still has a lot of questions to ask on our final theme.

My question is for Dr Stark. We spoke about mothers being huge role models but putting themselves last because of unaffordable costs. I am wondering about the early motherhood period. Is that an area that we should focus on and target in order to help mothers to understand that making their activity a priority and keeping it up, because they have a little bit of time and space to do so at that time, would have really positive impacts for their children? Could that make a real difference, going forward?

Investing in the period when a lot of mothers are off on maternity leave would be beneficial. One of the things that helps their mental health in that period is doing some physical activity. It is a really good time in which to do Pilates classes that they can bring their babies along to, so that they can get better pelvic floor strength and build it after that. Thereafter, women can do activities such as exercise classes that their babies can go to so that they are together while the women do exercise for themselves. Many baby groups’ activities are not that active. Some things, such as walking groups, can be very cheap. Not everybody likes going to baby groups, or people might find them quite overwhelming, but being able to make connections with other women and to go on walks with the baby in a pram or sling is really good for people’s mental health, so we should encourage those sorts of groups.

I suppose that what I am really asking is whether there is an opportunity—

Definitely.

—to tell women about how important it is to stay active throughout their life, and about how important the impact of that on their child will be.

Some of the things that we do in antenatal classes are all about the delivery, and are not about child health or the mother’s health, looking forward. It is important to discuss and look at such things because we know that when mums are active and healthy, that makes the children active and healthy. Provision of lots of opportunities in that crucial period would definitely be spending to save, because improving those things will help everybody.

I have one question that is for each of the panellists. It is probably a good one to end on. In your opinion—we will start with Rona Blackwood and then go to Mairi Stark and Eilidh Paterson—what one or two things could we do to bring the fun factor into sport and physical activity for women and girls?

That is a lovely question. The first thing is always to go back and ask the girls what makes them happy and gives them enjoyment. We need lots of time for dialogue with the girls. Also, because girls—I am talking about them specifically—spend so much time in school, we need to make learning active and fun. If we look at the health and wellbeing curriculum and physical activity in schools, we see that children are often not learning why they are doing sport—they are just doing it. It is important to bring the fun, creative and outdoor factors into the school environment and to keep talking to girls about what makes it fun for them.

Different sports are fun to different people, so kids should have a huge opportunity to try different sports—and, indeed, to try them together. We need to show that it is not all about competition—that it is about kids having a really fun day and enjoying what they have been doing, without even realising that what they have been doing has been sport and exercise, because what they have had has been a fun time doing activities. That approach should go through all ages and all the different things that people can do.

Thank you for the wonderful question. Rona Blackwood is right to say that it is a lovely one on which to end the session.

Fun is a natural result of being active around other people. If you go into any community and watch people do pretty much any sport, you will see fun being had in the majority of cases. I think that that should be the central point of taking part in sport and activity—it should be fun. Nobody should be sending a child to a class, session or sport with the aim of them winning. The idea is that they are there to enjoy themselves, to have fun and to make friends with other people. I therefore encourage that to be the central point of all sport and activity, no matter the age or stage of the people involved, although that should certainly be the case in the very early stages. After all, if people do not find sport fun, they will not come back to it, they will not remain active and they will then see themselves as having been othered or will be inactive, possibly for life, because they will not see themselves as being welcome in that space.

That was, indeed, an excellent question to end on, with excellent answers.

I thank all three panellists for the time that they have spent with us today. You have certainly given us a lot of food for thought and a lot of things to take forward with other witnesses who will come before us.

I suspend the meeting briefly to allow the panellists to leave. We have one item left to take in public.

12:12 Meeting suspended.  

12:12 On resuming—