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I could disagree because...
*  in New Zealand PE is compulsary up until year 10.
* At places like ASB sports arena they make gear cheaper to rent for young people.
* WCC build sports centre so younger people are more exposed to the variety of sports and have  place to play those sports.
* There are 27 basketball courts all over Wellington the WCC have put up for the community.

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Sporting events you could try at low costs

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Sporting events you could try at low costs

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https://www.eventfinda.co.nz/sports/events/wellington

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I could agree because...
* To sign up for some gyms you have to be over 16
* Gyms and sports fees are very expensive. At Les Mills you can be charged over $120 a month!

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Examples of communites exposing young people to exercise and sports

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Examples of communites exposing young people to exercise and sports

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Primary schools will be pushed to provide one hour's "moderate to vigorous" exercise each day in the country's biggest physical education shake-up.

Under the plans, designed to arrest growing obesity, schools could end up offering skate-boarding or even extreme sports to tempt children away from television and computer games and take up exercise.

The changes do not alter the PE curriculum, but will examine ways to integrate an hour of exercise into and around the school day, including before and after school and during other lessons.

But an hour's physical activity in an already crowded school day has been attacked by the head of the primary principals' organisation as "pie in the sky".

The changes come into force as tens of thousands of children start school next week.

They are an extension of the Government's Active Schools programme, which requires a minimum of one hour a week of exercise in primary schools and, for the first time, gives PE the same curriculum priority as maths and English.

Sport and Recreation New Zealand, with the Ministry of Education, is installing a team of regional sports advisers to push schools to provide for one hour each day.

This follows a two-year pilot project which revealed that 96 per cent of primary-age pupils failed to perform 12 fundamental physical activities such as running, jumping and catching. "Where we are headed at the moment is a pretty scary place," Sparc's education manager, Cath Clark, told the Herald.

"There's so much more choice for children, with iPods, Gameboys, PlayStations, television and the rest. We had to say, 'What are we offering children that will attract them to exercise?'."

The plans will try to do away with "boot camp"-style PE lessons and instead concentrate on providing popular opportunities that capture the young imagination.

Ms Clark said that could mean offering mountain-biking, skate-boarding and even extreme sports.

The Sparc study showed just 17 out of 424 children had all 12 fundamental movement skills, and a third of youngsters were overweight or obese.

"I don't believe one New Zealander can be comfortable with these figures," she said. "It's quite frightening and if we want healthy members of society we need this."

But Pat Newman, president of the Principals' Federation, said a crowded curriculum meant schools could barely manage one hour a day for reading. "Let's get real and stop being politically correct - the responsibility for this is with parents and families."

Schools supported increasing the amount of physical education, but the responsibility could not be shoved on to them alone. "The advisers will be of great use, provided they concentrate on the community," said Mr Newman. "Health and fitness gurus are all very well, but they must realise there's much more that schools need to focus on. It's pie-in-the-sky stuff."

Sparc has appointed 17 regional advisers. This figure will rise to 29 by June.

The Education Review Office will measure schools' progress.

Irene Cooper, head of the primary teachers union the NZEI, said an hour a day was an ideal that would be achieved only with creative time management. Physical education also needed to go with healthy eating.

"Together [schools and communities] can achieve this, but we will not have the existing teaching programme dragged down," she said.

Education Minister Steve Maharey said the issue of children's health had to be taken seriously. "We've got a time-bomb on our hands and some time in their lives they will have a hell of a problem unless we act now."

Growing problem

* One third of school-age children are obese or overweight (about 250,000).
* New Zealand is ranked number seven in an OECD league of the world's most obese nations (20.9pc of adult population).
* That figure is expected to rise to 29 per cent by 2011 as today's children grow up.
* About half a million adult New Zealanders are obese - twice as many as 25 years ago.

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Give kids one hour exercise each day, schools told

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Primary schools will be pushed to provide one hour's "moderate to vigorous" exercise each day in the country's biggest physical education shake-up. Under the plans, designed to arrest growing obesity, schools could end up offering skate-boarding or even extreme sports to tempt children away from television and computer games and take up exercise.

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Example of communities making it difficult

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Example of communities making it difficult

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School principals and health experts are concerned about the number of teenage girls who drop out of sport and physical education.

In Britain a large survey found only 12 per cent of girls were reaching the standard level of fitness by age 14 - half the rate for boys, which was also low at 24 per cent.

Just over half of girls said negative experiences of sport and PE lessons had put them off exercise at school.

Government agency Sport NZ said yesterday that no such national survey results were available on New Zealand teenagers, but reports had consistently indicated girls were dropping out of sport and other physical activities more than boys.

PE classes are compulsory until the end of Year 10, but PE performance, offered from Year 11, is optional.

"At levels above Year 10 we know that girls drop off extremely quickly," said Sport NZ's general manager of community sport and recreation, John Reid.

Reasons given for girls ditching sport and PE include body image, not wanting to wear shorts, sweat causing makeup to run, messy hair, less interest than boys in winning and a lack of informal training of younger girls in the skills needed for success.

"There are gender constraints that work against girls - although individually there are some very talented girls," Mr Reid said.

"We do know that in childhood playing in the backyard ... girls get less stimulation in a sporting and physical sense and therefore become less skilled by the time they reach [adolescence] than perhaps a lot of boys.

"Many feel they are not skilled enough to continue and are embarrassed by their lack of skill."

The British survey of more than 1500 school pupils found 45 per cent of girls said sport at school was "too competitive", and 48 per cent said being sweaty was "not feminine".

Secondary Principals' Association president Patrick Walsh said teenage girls often felt self-conscious about their bodies.

"They don't like engaging in PE because they feel it exposes it a bit more than they would have in a classroom setting."

The sport and PE dropout rate was a problem because of New Zealand's increasing rates of obesity, he said, particularly for girls who tended to be quite sedentary.

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Concern over girls dropping out of PE classes

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School principals and health experts are concerned about the number of teenage girls who drop out of sport and physical education. In Britain a large survey found only 12 per cent of girls were reaching the standard level of fitness by age 14 - half the rate for boys, which was also low at 24 per cent.