«Physical inactivity is the epidemic of the 21st century. About 80% of children and adolescents barely move»

This is how the World Health Organization (WHO) drastically describes the current developments with regard to the physical activity behavior of children and adolescents in Germany and other countries. These findings can also be applied to children and adolescents living in Hamburg and are supported by current studies such as the AOK Family Study. For example, although it has been proven that 57 percent of the parents surveyed are active with their children on a daily basis, for one in three families physical activity is not part of their leisure time activities. According to the study, only one in ten children meets the WHO’s physical activity recommendations.

In scientific discourse, this observation repeatedly leads to debates with contrary positions. On the one hand, it is postulated that «sport is one of the most important and popular leisure activities in childhood and adolescence, that an overwhelming majority of adolescents regularly engage in sport, and that sportiness can be regarded as a youth-specific age norm» (Schmiade & Mutz, 2012). In contrast, however, statements and studies describe adolescents only as «media freaks» who are increasingly regressing to «couch potatoes» and «body wrecks» – characterized by increasing media use and a passive lifestyle (ibid.).

As is so often the case with very opposing opinions, it can be assumed that the truth lies between the two extremes: There is much to suggest that both descriptions point to a real phenomenon: Some children and young people play a lot of sports and eat a very healthy diet. For others, however, leisure time is characterized by a lack of sports and physical activity. These differences are not randomly distributed across population groups, but follow a socio-structural pattern, as confirmed by a recent study on the economic development of sports in Hamburg: «In addition to the generally positive trend, it should not be overlooked that there is, however, a growing inequality in parts, especially in active sports participation between social classes and generations»(Cotterell & Vöpel, 2020). In the report «Hamburg Children on the Move 2017», these observations are supported by concrete results. For example, certain children and adolescents seem to be less likely to be active in sports due to social influencing factors. Examples include girls with a migration background, only a quarter of whom (27%) exercise intensively, and only a third of the group of 10-year-olds are active in a sports club. It was also found that twice as many children are active in a sports club when their family wealth is higher (cf. ibid.).

What conclusion can be drawn after this initial stocktaking? The physical activity of children and adolescents in Germany, and particularly in Hamburg, does not seem to be the same for everyone. For the broad masses, a decline in physical activity and thus a health-promoting lifestyle can be observed. Particularly affected are those children and adolescents from the lower social strata and the associated disadvantaging social factors. This development describes a social phenomenon that leads to serious problems at very different levels.

The most serious problem here is the development of health. The KiGGS study shows a significant increase in the prevalence of overweight. The health and psychosocial consequences of lacking activity and obesity in childhood usually have lifelong negative effects. In addition to physical impairments, the main effects are cognitive and emotional. An increasing lack of activity can lead to stagnation in the physical development of adolescents. In addition, deficits in personality development are also observed. It should also be noted that curative measures for overweight or obese children and adolescents have a success rate of less than 5%.

In addition to the health dimension, physical inactivity also has an economic dimension. The costs caused by the inactivity described above amount to 14.5 billion euros in Germany. According to the WHO, a 20% increase in physical activity would mean a cost saving of 2.7 billion euros in Germany (cf. WHO, 2010).

It is also undisputed that organized sports in particular serve as a socialization space for the acquisition of social skills. It is precisely in the team structures of game sports that values and skills such as assertiveness and self-confidence are acquired. The conviction is that playing sports together not only offers opportunities for self-realization and self-assertion, but also encourages fairness, acceptance of rules and respect for opponents, teaches social skills, creates mutual trust, promotes equal opportunities between men and women and, last but not least, opens up outstanding opportunities for cultural exchange. If this important social setting of sport were to lose more and more of its relevance, this would mean the loss of an important socialization space and the collapse of the German club culture.
In addition, another perspective, that of talent development in professional competitive sports, will be addressed here. After all, in view of demographic change, only a limited number of children and young people are available to German high-performance sports and the associated performance centers anyway. Likewise, athletic talent is a scarce commodity per se. If the pool of potential young athletes is then further reduced because a large proportion of children and young people have no access to sport, competitive sport in Germany will be deprived of necessary resources that are essential for its existence. As the addressee of this problem, the DOSB in particular, with its affiliated organizations declares the promotion of talent to be one of its main tasks, is forced to explain itself. On the one hand, it must justify itself from a purely sports policy perspective, since the vision of the youth development organizations of equal access for all is not being fulfilled. On the other hand, under the given conditions, it cannot fulfill its actual function of promoting the best of the best, measured against the criterion of sporting success.

The initiative «Hamburg bewegt Kids» wants to counter this trend with a structural content-strong approach and significantly increase the quality as well as the quantity of physical activity offers for children in Hamburg. Through intensively and highly qualified kids coaches and neighborhood managers, we want to place a high focus on the coordinative-cognitive versatility of children. This should lead to a sustainable enthusiasm for sports and physical activity.

We want to ignite this enthusiasm through analog and digital networking of daycare centers, schools, and clubs and the daily work of Kids Coaches and neighborhood managers in Hamburg’s districts. Our approach provides for polysportive physical education up to 3rd grade, which will ultimately lead to individually appropriate specialized physical activity programs in club sports through the scientifically verified German Mobility Test, which has been practiced for many years. Intensive work at the grassroots level in daycare centers and schools is necessary for the initiative’s sustained success. Awareness of the problem must be raised and educators, teachers, and parents must be provided with solutions via digital and analog training.

The mixture of awareness for the problem and the importance of physical activity, as well as the simple provision of strong content, enables the initiative «Hamburg bewegt Kids» to be successfully scaled in the long term. An idea that can not only change Hamburg but also initiate a systematic structural change in the German sports landscape.