Space hoppers invade Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park



Space hoppers invade Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
 

The Copper Box Arena on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park will today host sports involving space hoppers and dodging volleyballs as the winners of a national schools competition test their newly created sports with schoolchildren from East London. The event highlights the benefits of physical activity as part of National Obesity Awareness Week.

The best three entries from a national schools competition, in which entrants were challenged to devise a new and innovative sport or game, will be showcased at a reception hosted by the National Obesity Forum. Students from schools around the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park will test the innovative, quirky and unique games alongside their inventors. Entries include ‘Foot Golf’, a game of golf played with a football and using cones, logs and tunnels as obstacles, ‘Space Ball’, football played on space hoppers and ‘Volley-Dodge’, a mixture between dodgeball and volleyball.

The winners and runners-up in both junior and infant categories of the competition, who produced picture diaries of their physical activity, will also attend the event.

Almost 20 per cent of children aged 10 and 11 in the UK are categorised as obese, with only one in five local authorities allocating funding to tackle childhood obesity. The National Obesity Forum’s goal for National Obesity Awareness Week 2015 is to encourage people to take action and promote the manageable ways obesity can be tackled.

The winners of the national schools competition will be awarded funding towards the development of an outdoor area for their school, and the runners-up will receive funding for sports equipment for their school, courtesy of The Walt Disney Company.  

Professor David Haslam, Chair of the National Obesity Forum, said:

“A third of children aged 10-11 are either overweight or obese, and this is something that must be addressed. We need to encourage young people to be physically active and this was our goal when running our competition. We’ve had hundreds of remarkable entries and are very pleased to be able to showcase the winners and runners up today. It’s been a great success and we’ve received outstanding feedback from schools and parents.”

 

Matthew Grossman, Vice President Citizenship, The Walt Disney Company (Europe, Middle East & Africa) said:

“The Walt Disney Company seeks to inspire children and their families to lead healthier lifestyles. National Obesity Awareness Week is a great campaign and we’re excited to be supporting the competition for the second year. One of the winners from 2014 used Disney’s funding to build an outdoor gym that benefited the whole school and we’re excited about how this year’s prizes will inspire and benefit more children around the UK.”

 

Karen West, Head of Sport and Health, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, said:

“We are delighted to offer fun and exciting activities in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park which appeal to all age groups. This innovative project provides us with exciting new ways to encourage young people to become physically active in order to reduce their chances of becoming obese.”

 

 

Further information about National Obesity Awareness Week 2015 can be found at www.noaw.org.uk.