25/09/2025
The recent report, “Game Changing: How sport gives every girl a better chance”produced by Public First and commissioned by Sky Sports, estimated that enabling 18-year-old girls to play sport could lead to £570m in annual productivity gains and £73m in savings to the NHS each year.
Despite the many generally-accepted benefits, it remains a fact that girls are far less likely than boys to be involved in sport. Girls are still dropping out of physical activity at alarming rates post primary school and many mothers are feeling such disappointment at how little has changed since their own school days.
All of this is playing out at a time when the profile of women’s football and rugby is at an all time high following stellar performances by the home nation teams in recent World Cup competitions. There is no shortage of fantastic female role models across the sporting landscape - clear and proud in their advocacy for opportunities for all, across gender, sexual orientation, body type, ethnic and other boundaries. On our screens, we see stadiums overflowing with young girls full of dreams of their sporting participation and achievement, but all too often these dreams fall by the wayside, unable to survive the obstacles.
According to the detailed “Women in Sport - Reframing Sport for Teenage Girls” report, only 14 per cent of girls 5-16 achieve recommended levels of physical activity falling to 10 per cent of girls 13-16. Importantly, 1 in 3 girls aged 14-16 are unhappy with their body image and only 4 out of 10 girls consider themselves “sporty”. Girls with low body esteem avoid trying out for the team sports that would help to develop leadership and teamwork skills and create camaraderie and shared responsibility.
Girls are building less of the resilience, confidence and adaptability that sport supports and is so fundamental to creating opportunities in work and in life.
It is time to make the changes necessary to deliver a better future.
Sport Wi******er intends that a sharp focus on female sport must inform our future planning.