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English Outdoor Council

Research into the Effect of Participation in Outdoor Activities
on Engendering Lasting Active Lifestyles

Bertie Everard, Martin Hudson, Graham Lodge 2004

Summary

As there has not hitherto been a pressing need to establish unmistakably a causal relationship between participation in outdoor activities and forming the habit of subsequently leading an active lifestyle, none of the research attempting to make this connection is really robust. However, there is ample circumstantial evidence and a chain of logical inferences that, even when the engendering of active lifestyles is not the primary purpose of the activity, it is more likely to result in more active lifestyles than if the activity had not taken place; also, that if outdoor programmes were to be designed with the express purpose of bringing about an enduring change of behaviour, to wit, a more active lifestyle, then unmistakable evidence of a causal relationship would be obtained by research.

The logical argument runs thus:


1. Purposefully designed outdoor programmes are known beyond reasonable doubt to lead to desired behaviour change in bringing about (a) enhanced self-esteem and a sense of purpose, (b) a reduction in offending behaviour, (c) social inclusion and (d) correction of eating disorders (this is not an exhaustive list)
2. Purposefully designed sports programmes lead to participants taking up an active sport on a regular basis
3. Development trainers have a wide array of skills and techniques that help people to learn from the consequences of their actions (which could readily be applied to the consequences of not taking exercise)
4. Development trainers have a wide array of skills and techniques for shaping values and attitudes, eg towards environmental conservation, considerateness towards others and self-improvement
5. Therefore it is highly likely that development training techniques could be successfully applied to combating inactive lifestyles and obesity.

Some Relevant Research and Reading

1 Colin Mortlock: Adventure Education and Outdoor Pursuits, 1973

When this seminal book was written, much Outdoor Education was designed to encourage young people to take up outdoor pursuits. The emphasis on recreation used to be much stronger then, e.g. training young people in camping skills. However, as time has passed, developing new recreational habits has become only one of many aims, which has been drowned out by 'higher' aims (social, environmental, educational, developmental, therapeutic, spiritual). Nowadays, therefore, activities will often be chosen with these higher aims in mind, rather than the simple aim of providing recreation.

Providers of outdoor recreation may therefore be contributing more than providers of outdoor learning to engendering a love of outdoor activities for their own sake, because the primary aim here is to give children fun. They can justly claim that they already make a valuable general contribution to a well-balanced (and therefore healthy) personality, as a result of providing residential outdoor activities/ holidays/ courses in an informal learning environment (experienced, however, as recreational rather than as primarily educational). The main benefits are:



1. Learning the skills of social interaction (making friendships)
2. Experiencing life away from parents/home (learning to become independent)
3. Enjoying a complete change, rest and relaxation (re-creation).

2 Urban and Artificial Adventure

The phenomenon of urban adventure and artificial adventure (climbing walls, ski slopes, boulder parks, skateboard parks, BMX tracks, new cycle routes) has grown in importance because it is more accessible/local and therefore more likely to result in regular activity. Urban-based projects such as the Akers Trust in Birmingham, the Drumchapel Adventure Group and Mobex are well placed to provide regular opportunities for outdoor activity, and could be developed to cater more for the same young people over extended periods - like an outdoor club). Such projects may have useful statistics, as may other schemes/projects that already support regular outdoor exercise, eg the Duke of Edinburgh's Award and Sustrans.

3 McDonald, D. (c.1994) Outdoor Adventure Activities: Their Place in the Development of Sports Opportunities for Young People: Research Report for the Sports Council

This research shows the appeal of outdoor activities (and their potential for attracting young people to become more active), but unfortunately does not provide robust evidence of an enduring effect on lifestyle. However, this may be more a question of whether programmes were specifically designed to achieve this. The following excerpts are relevant:

PRIMARY SCHOOLS

p6 "In the past, outdoor and adventure activities in the primary school curriculum have at best been seen in terms of one-off trips to the countryside when children reach the age of ten. The evidence from research conducted with primary schools in Dudley is that both teachers and children, even as young as five years old, can benefit from outdoor and adventure activities in the school environment or in local parks and areas near school. Such activities have a great deal to contribute to the curriculum, in particular for those schools which are moving towards using the GRASP approach - which means literally 'getting results and solving problems' - or those schools which are using the National Curriculum approach to planning - performance - evaluating."
p11 "Research from Dudley shows that outdoor and adventure activities provide an ideal foundation for and contribute to the wider personal and social development so vital to developing sport at primary school level but they also provide a foundation for a whole host of other activities."

SECONDARY SCHOOLS

p 13 "The evidence from our research in Coventry leaves us in no doubt that young people want outdoor adventure activities. Out of all the activities that the 900 pupils interviewed in our survey of 5th and 6th formers wanted to try when they left school, outdoor adventure activities led the way."
p14 "Outdoor and adventure activities make up eleven out of the top twenty, thirteen out of twenty if you include archery and shooting. The responses are from male and female students across a wide range of social backgrounds.

TOP TWENTY

Skiing Parachuting Canoeing Water Skiing Archery Shooting Hang Gliding Windsurfing Rock Climbing Squash American Football Motor Racing Horse Riding Sailing Karate Yoga Golf Judo Sub Aqua Ice Skating

A follow-up survey of the same pupils three years later showed that the opportunities to take up the activities they mentioned outside of school were just not there. Only 5 out of the 114 in the follow-up survey managed to take up one of the activities on a regular basis. No-one had even tried rock climbing, motor racing or horse-riding, let alone had the chance to take it up.

This suggests that the lack of evidence of an enduring effect may be more to do with lack of opportunity than with lack of motivation. This could be because there were no local facilities or because participants could not afford to access them.

Questions about what activities they wanted to try showed that their interests were shifting towards adventure activities as young people get older.

As the CCPR response to the Choosing Health? Choosing Activity Consultation has shown, lack of long-term investment in such activities is currently a barrier to increasing capacity to deliver, and hence to increasing participation.

4 Geoff Nichols' Research into the Effect of Sports Counselling on Diversion from Crime

Particulars of this research may be viewed at www.shef.ac.uk/pr/press_releases/pr96/44-96.html. Nichols evaluated schemes designed to encourage and support young people in taking up a regular interest in sport or outdoor activity in order to divert them from crime. The same principles and procedures might well apply in relation to obesity. These programmes were the most deliberate efforts we know of to get young people to change their lifestyle and take up a regular physical activity.

It is a longitudinal study showing that sports counselling has an enduring effect on offender behaviour. Although we have not researched the evidence, we think that there must have been studies showing how PE lessons in schools affect lifestyle choices. Equally, the reduction of PE in schools must surely be contributing to more sedentary lifestyles.

5 National Youth Watersports Audit (1996): British Marine Industries Federation and Southampton Institute

This study lists health (mental and physical) as a benefit of participation in watersports and gives evidence from Welshman's research on Children's Fitness and Activity Levels (British Journal of Physical Education, July 1994, vol. 6, no. 4, p. 13) that 'mounting evidence indicates that adult activity patterns may be established in childhood, therefore emphasising the significance of early childhood experiences in sport'.

Also Wallace provides evidence of increasingly sedentary lifestyles amongst young people (Wallace, J., 1994, The Health of the Nation, in The Leisure Manager, August/September, Vol. 13, no. 3, p. 27). Taken together, these papers demonstrate the advantages of watersports for reversing the undesirable effects of sedentary lifestyles.

The Use of Development Training Approaches to Induce Lasting Behavioural Change

Development training providers are experts in behaviour change and can point to successful work in all kinds of areas (people with disabilities, people with health problems, people who have offended, people developing vocational skills). Just as it is possible to design programmes that tackle low self-esteem, offending behaviour, stress management etc. so it is possible to design programmes designed to encourage other kinds of lifestyle change - towards a more active lifestyle. Development trainers have a wide array of skills that help people to learn from the consequences of their actions, that help people to reflect deeply on long term goals and values, that get people into more positive grooves by building on small successes and that create (through partnership or coaching) the long term support needed to maintain the desired behaviour change.

A suitable outdoor programme (such as a sailing voyage) could be used as a reward for taking regular steps towards a more active lifestyle (e.g. walking to and from school every day) or for taking steps towards nutritional change (e.g. keeping a food and drink diary). The reward approach has been highly successfully used by the Merseyside Police in their PAYES scheme over a period of ten years, in conjunction with a leading provider of outdoor development training, the Brathay Hall Trust. It has prevented many young people known to be at risk of coming to the attention of the police. There is similar research, over a shorter period, into the lasting effects of the West Yorkshire Police Inclusion Programme, also conducted with Brathay.

A key feature of development training and outdoor education is the importance of promoting the transfer of learning to different settings; indeed, the ability to do this is one of the mandatory national units of occupational competence. All candidates for the Level 3 S/NVQ in Outdoor Education and Development Training are required to submit evidence of having promoted the successful transfer of learning from the outdoors to other settings (eg work, home, club). The number of such candidates is estimated to be about 500-800, and the average number of participants in outdoor activities per candidate is estimated to be 50-100, so there exists uncollated evidence that 25,000 to 80,000 participants have, or can be inferred from externally verified portfolio evidence to have, transferred their learning to other settings. It would be quite extraordinary if such learning has not included a desire for more physical activities like those they have enjoyed.

It follows that the 'feel-good factor' experienced by the vast majority of participants in outdoor centre activities can readily be related to opportunities back home, and information can be (and is) provided about local facilities. This could be strengthened by having suitable posters in the centres to encourage lasting participation in outdoor activities. It is also quite usual to plan for follow-up initiatives at intervals after a residential, to ensure that the requisite learning has, as expected, been transferred to the home setting.

Barriers

As our earlier paper described, there is a barrier to the greater use of the outdoors for keeping fit. Parents have become almost paranoid in not letting their children out into open spaces unaccompanied by an adult. At a policy level there is common ground between the Outdoor and the Playwork sectors of the Active Leisure and Learning industry in trying to combat an irrational fear of the outdoors. Amongst the many causes of childhood obesity, this parental paranoia probably has a large part to play.

In any campaign to encourage the greater use of outdoor activities to combat obesity, it will be important to take this culture of fear seriously. The Campaign for Adventure, launched in November by HRH the Duke of Edinburgh with the support of the English Outdoor Council, is proving very successful in persuading parliamentarians to address this problem. It is to be hoped that the Department of Health will add its support to the Campaign, with the object of lowering the barrier that is dissuading young people from engaging in active outdoor activities. The fact that the Brazier Volunteering Bill, which sought to address this problem, was talked out in the House of Commons makes it all the more important for government departments to find other ways of lowering the barrier of fear. A reference to this in the White Paper would be one such means.

Bertie Everard, Martin Hudson, Graham Lodge

20.7.04



Obesity and Outdoor Activities: research and successful practice

Please get in touch with Roger Greenaway or the authors of this article if you know of outdoor programmes that successfully promote active lifestyles or of research investigating outdoor programmes that are designed to prevent or reduce obesity.



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