About 16% of Ukrainian schoolchildren in grades 5-11 do not have any physical activity or do not play sports during the year. Svitlana Vynokhodova, head of the InfoSapience research team, told Komersant ukrainskyi
based on the results of a sociological study conducted as part of the Ukrainian-Swiss project “Acting for Health”.
“We talked to the direct participants of this project – representatives of communities where new initiatives were implemented to improve health and prevent disease. Gradually, people are beginning to realise that health is not limited to hospital walls. This is especially true for children and adolescents, but there are alarming trends,”
– says the expert.
Svitlana Vynokhodova cited the results of a survey conducted as part of the cooperation between the communities and the project:
“Over 66% of children understand the importance of physical activity and exercise. They are ready to play sports and try something new. More than half of the children, 54%, do something regularly. About 16% of schoolchildren do not play sports at all. This means that it is extremely important to create a favourable environment in the format of sports holidays and various competitions.”
In general, these data correlate with the data on the popularity of sports among the adult population. As reported by acting Minister of Sports Matvey Bidnyi in February this year, 15.6% of adults in Ukraine regularly go in for sports.
At the same time, at the last Olympic Games in Paris, Ukraine took 22nd place in the overall team standings among 205 countries with 3 gold, 5 silver and 4 bronze medals.