A new ukactive report calls on the government, schools and everyone involved in childhood development to recognise the importance of physical activity at home by urging parents to play a more active role in boosting their child’s physical literacy.

The Start Young, Stay Active pulls together national information to highlight the declining standards of fitness among children across the UK and the need to address this in order to turn the tide on the UK’s inactivity crisis.

The report claims it now takes the average child 90 seconds longer to run a mile than it did 30 years ago, as well as citing 2013 figures that showed the numbers of young boys and girls meeting the Chief Medical Officer’s (CMO) physical activity guidelines has fallen below one in five.

“We have a generation who are growing up less fit and healthy than their parents. Modern diets and the multitude of sedentary activities don’t help, but it’s the fact that children aren’t developing the basic aptitudes for exercise that is the most worrying thing for me,” said children’s activity advocate Judy Murray, who collaborated with ukactive on the report.

“Real change could be achieved by calling on government to include physical education homework as mandatory”, she added.

Murray began Set4Sport – a programme designed to improve co-ordination, balance and agility in children – in 2011, based on the games she played with her tennis star sons Andy and Jamie when they were young.

Start Young, Stay Active calls for closer relationships between schools, parents and policymakers and increased promotion of available resources for adults to use, such as Set4Sport.

It also recommends extending the national child measurement programme to include activity levels alongside height and weight, as well as improving the depth of data collection on children’s physical activity.

“This is about re-ordering priorities so that pre-school, activity-led games become as second nature for parents, as supporting their children to learn to read or count,” said ukactive CEO David Stalker.

“It’s simple, a child who is habitually active from a young age is more likely to be more confident, achieve academically and grow into a happy adult, free from chronic diseases, which have a detrimental impact on their personal health and on the nation’s spiralling NHS costs.”

Stalker outlined the benefits and extent of ukactive’s collaboration with Judy Murray in the latest edition of Health Club Management.

To read the full Start Young, Stay Active report click here.