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Posted: 18 Feb 2010 | Channels:

Nell McAndrew Launches Campaign to Get British Families Swimming

New research released today reveals how poor exercise habits of parents could be having an impact on their children’s attitude to physical activity.

The research conducted by British Gas, of almost 1000 parents of children aged 15 or under across Great Britain, showed that almost three-quarters of parents (72%) are falling short of meeting the Government’s recommendations on weekly exercise – 30 minutes of activity five times a week.

Other key findings of the research revealed that half (50%) of British parents feel a lack of time is the main reason they do not exercise as a family as much as they would like; almost a third of parents (31%) blamed poor weather conditions, and nearly a quarter (24%) cite expense as the reason for not exercising as much as they like as a family. However, close to half (43%) of parents admitted to wanting to spend more time being active and exercising as a family.

In response, model and TV presenter Nell McAndrew is fronting a campaign to get families exercising more together – and particularly, to get them swimming, as the survey found that according to parents, their children favoured swimming as their preferred family activity over any other. The fitness queen and mother admits that for many parents it can be a struggle to balance work and family time, and easy to sacrifice exercising when time and money is tight. However, from her own experience she also has found that swimming can be a great way to keep fit with the family, even in winter, and a great way to strengthen the bond between parent and child – she says her son has been swimming since he was five months old, and now they go swimming together every week as a family.

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