What I am loving most about the Olympics is how good it has been for my 6 year old daughter. For girls these days there aren’t enough positive female role models. Girls are surrounded by images of Barbie dolls and pop stars. I don’t think this is a bad thing but I think it doesn’t always give a realistic impression of what women can achieve. Sports women like Rebecca Adlington, Victoria Pendleton and Jessica Ennis are all beautiful healthy and successful. This is something that girls should aspire to.
Not everyone can be an olympian of course, this isn’t the point. The slogan ‘Inspire a Generation’ is about encouraging British children to get involved and take part in sports. My daughter has always taken part in sports as a hobby she’s done classes including cheerleading, gymnastics, dancing and swimming but until watching the olympics she has never really aspired to be successful at any of them. Seeing women achieving something through sport has been inspirational for her and she is so keen to try as many sports as she can!
I would love us to get to a point where magazines aimed at the tween generation feature more sportswomen and fewer pop stars and actresses. Of course it’s not just down to the media, parents and schools should use this opportunity to encourage the next generation to take advantage of local activities and take part in more sports. There is so much out there available to our children and we really need to get our kids outside running around and having fun with sport.
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