Sport England has recently released a report revealing the impact investment in sports has had on the health of the nation. The annual value of health benefits the nation gains from sport is over £11 billion, buy with almost £2 billion shaved off healthcare costs.
A huge part of the economic impact sport has comes from the benefits sport brings to our health and wellbeing. When we’re fit and healthy we’re happier and get more out of life.
During our work with fitness providers we’ve seen how effective marketing of sports and fitness can turn lives around. Many people see a gym or health club as out of their reach. They’re considered expensive, intimidating and frightening.
Often people unconsciously take ‘fitness breaks’, as if it were a career break or maternity leave. Others simply don’t know how to go about looking after themselves.
YMCA’s summer fitness campaign targeted vulnerable and disabled local people in the South East, opening up opportunities to people that thought fitness was well out of their reach. The results have been incredible.
PureGym’s Pure Loser campaign has lost the nation over 2,000 stone, transforming the lives of many of the fitness chain’s members.
I still have a Nike advert from a magazine I picked up when I was 16. The image is, to me, that woman I aspire to be. She’s sassy, confident and in shape. The motivational words that accompany the image still ring in my ears.
This twenty year old piece of marketing remains my reminder to keep healthy and active. I continue to feel the benefits of sport every day, and I know I’d struggle, quite literally, to live without it.
