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Age

Ageing affects people in different ways. There are, though, some age-related trends that can affect participation in sport.

• Children need to develop gross motor skills from an early age to become confident movers.
• Adolescents experience a growth spurt that changes their physical development. This affects how they acquire skills and how they feel, ie confidence, self-esteem and body image.
• Women may experience a variety of changes during the menopause, such as weight-gain, aches, anxiety and loss of concentration. This may affect their self-confidence.
• Older people may experience weight-gain and decreasing flexibility and strength, and find it harder to recover from injury. They may lose confidence in their physical abilities.

As part of a healthy lifestyle, physical activity improves these experiences but people may need encouragement or different opportunities to help them to take part. See Sedentary lifestyles.

Gender

In the UK, 1.9 million fewer women than men take part in sport each week. There is a significant drop in girls' participation from age 11. By age 14, boys are twice as active as girls.

All girls and women have their own reasons for taking or not taking part in physical activity. Research shows there are some common barriers to participation. Many girls and/or women:

• don't see the relevance of PE and sport to their lives
• think choices in PE and school sport are limited
• dislike taking part with boys or men who monopolise play or who play aggressively
• are more motivated by having fun, making friends and keeping fit than excelling
• feel judged and are therefore embarrassed by how they look
• have less spare time due to childcare and domestic responsibilities
• lack positive role models - locally and nationally
• see that women's sport usually has a lower status and gets less coverage in the media

Tackling these barriers will support more girls and women to take part in physical activity as part of a healthy lifestyle. This means consulting girls and women to find out what works for them.

Ethnicity

Over half of people in black and minority ethnic (BME) communities do no sport or physical activity.

On average, all BME groups have lower participation rates than the national average.

One of the main reasons why BME communities have lower rates of participation is the lack of BME role models involved in leading and organising sport. For example:

• only 5% of coaches are from BME communities
• only 7% of sports professionals (other than performers) are from BME communities
• people from BME communities are 50% less likely to be sports volunteers than the general population

In some communities, the factors of ethnicity, religion and gender combine to have an even greater effect on participation. For example, 92% of South Asian women do not meet the recommended levels of physical activity compared to 55% of all women.

To tackle inequalities in sport, all aspects of sport need to be considered – leadership, management, coaching, officiating and volunteering – as well as actual participation.