Breaking down barriers for women in sport and physical activity
Women continue to be less likely to participate in sport and physical activity than men. Why is this, and how can we, as a sector, help?
In 2023, the Sport England Active Lives Adult Survey report showed that women’s activity levels remained stable, hovering at around 60%. This figure has changed little over the past decade, and while not a huge win, it doesn’t seem too bad either. However, it’s important not to be complacent – especially when not all data sources agree on this relatively positive outlook.
According to a recent report from Vitality, less than one in four women hit the weekly target of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity. As this is an issue that affects almost half of the population, it poses a significant threat to national health, and as a result, economic prosperity.
Sport England have now also released research that particularly puts a spotlight on the greater barriers faced by women from lower-income backgrounds and underrepresented groups when it comes to ‘belonging’ in the world of physical activity. In the report, the proportion of women with lower incomes achieving the recommended activity level drops even lower than Vitality’s more general estimate, with just one in seven reaching the goal.
Thanks to a collective rise in conclusive research, public campaigns and social media fitness influencers, we can assume that most women are aware of the fact that sport and physical activity is good for you. So why are we struggling to prioritise it, and why disproportionately more than men?
What do we know?
While according to Vitality’s research many women cite weight loss as their key motivation, there are plenty of other ways that an active lifestyle can improve wellbeing. Incorporating movement into your day-to-day can boost your mental health and build your physical resilience, while many physical activity options, from football clubs to dance classes and yoga retreats also offer the opportunity to socialise and form a community (which also improves your mental health, by the way).
Sadly, many women are still not gaining all of these benefits. While reasons for not exercising can be extremely personal and complex, surveys show that many crop up time and time again. Some of the top barriers that women stated prevent them from exercising are:
- They struggle to find time for it (79%)
- They don’t enjoy it (65%)
- They fear being judged, often due to poor body image (62%)
- Their mental health makes it difficult for them (49%)
While these challenges are not gender specific, they form disproportionately large barriers for women, as evidenced by the lower participation rates.
What can we do?
Focus on the female experience
Although they are concerning, identifying the barriers is already a step towards improvement – as a sector, we now know what we can focus on when offering support and creating safe and enjoyable environments for women to exercise in.
As the sector workforce’s professional body and a partner of a broad range of sport and physical activity stakeholders, CIMSPA is able to initiate and back change through a range of initiatives. A key component of our work is ensuring that every sport and physical activity professional feels empowered to provide the best possible service to participants.
While generalist occupational training, such as personal trainer certifications, goes a long way to providing workers with the skills they need, it’s essential that we address the particular needs of women and girls directly. This is why, alongside the sector’s occupational professional standards, CIMSPA has been instrumental in the development of professional standards that focus on people and environments that require specialised support.
A highlight of these is the Working with Women and Girls professional standard. Created by experts in this field, the standard defines the knowledge and skills sector professionals need in order to offer women and girls a tailored experience in sport and physical activity. It covers practical elements like pelvic floor health to complex topics such as psychosocial experiences (that affect things like body image).
With many women, particularly those on lower incomes, feeling excluded from physical activity, that they don’t ‘belong’ in gyms and sports clubs or even that their safety is at risk, it is essential that our sector workforce is knowledgeable and empathetic towards the full spectrum of challenges that women face in order to make them feel welcome.
By definitively stating these topics as key knowledge, it ensures that the sport and physical activity workforce, as well as employers and educators, fully understand what is needed to allow women and girls to enjoy sport and physical activity on an equal playing field.
When those delivering their fitness class or training session show awareness of and sensitivity to the barriers a woman might face just to be there – for example gender stereotyping, their menstrual cycle or childcare – these women are more likely to have a positive experience and want to return.
Discover professional standards
Address mental health
This is not the only professional standard that addresses the challenges faced by women in sport. As highlighted by Vitality and Sport England’s reports, mental health forms a significant barrier to participation for many women. As well as widely known challenges such as anxiety and eating disorders, there are more subtle ways that mental health issues can affect how women exercise. This varies from issues with body image to women doubting their ability level. In order to support sector professionals in understanding and catering to the needs of those struggling with their mental health, the Working with People with Long-Term Conditions professional standard includes knowledge of a range of mental health conditions and their associated risk factors.
What’s more, a new professional standard is currently under development. Created through collaboration between Mind and other specialist experts and managed by CIMSPA, this will focus on working with people with mental health problems in community settings, providing professionals with focused learning on this prevalent barrier to exercise.
By completing training aligned with these professional standards, individuals working with women experiencing poor mental health will be better able to identify and support with any challenges. Being led by an understanding professional who and creates a reassuring and encouraging environment for sport and physical activity will ensure that more women feel able to exercise when their mental health might otherwise have stopped them from participating.
Explore professional standards
Champion high-quality training
If defining the vast amount of competency required to support women with gender-specific issues and mental health challenges is a step in the right direction, the way to really run forwards is to ensure that sector professionals have access to training so that they can gain and use this knowledge.
This is where CIMSPA’s education partners come into their own. Undergoing a rigorous quality assurance assessment and aligning their training opportunities to specific professional standards, these organisations ensure that they offer high-quality learning. Their training opportunities directly benefit young learners and sector professionals in their service delivery – which of course provides a better experience for participants.
A leader in the female-focused training space is CIMSPA Training Provider Partner The Well HQ. A key contributor to the Working with Women and Girls professional standard, the organisation provides a range of CIMSPA-endorsed training courses. Their learning focuses on the female body at several key life stages and what sport and physical activity professionals need to understand to create environments in which women can thrive.
In 2024, The Well HQ also pioneered a new course focused on engaging further education providers in understanding female health and equipping them to better support their female learners. The pilot was a great success, with attendees gaining practical advice on enhancing their sport and physical activity curriculum and teaching to meet girls’ needs.
Training providers such as The Well HQ offering relevant, focused training that meets specialised professional standards to both sector professionals working with women and educators working with girls are incredibly important.
By delivering and completing targeted training, the sport and physical activity workforce can collaboratively ensure that we are informed and able to support women and girls to enjoy exercise, boost their activity levels and reap the rewards of doing so.
Increase opportunities
Perhaps the most complicated barrier to address is that women feel they lack the time to exercise. With work and childcare demanding significant portions of time and energy for women under the age of 50, many find it difficult to take time for themselves. 36% even report feeling guilty for prioritising their own needs.
Without reasonable opportunity to try a range of active hobbies, how can women be expected to find something they enjoy and want to stick with?
While the government and all business sectors must play their parts to offer women greater equality in work and childcare flexibility, the sport and physical activity sector can offer more flexible opportunities to exercise around other priorities.
Through our local skills work, CIMSPA is collaborating with employers across the country to explore what roles are needed in order to offer a broader range of services to local communities. This varies from region to region, but the principles are the same. By finding out what – or more specifically, who – is needed to make more physical activity opportunities available, CIMSPA can help to coordinate relevant training with local providers such as further education colleges.
A successful example of this connected thinking can be found in Oxfordshire, where the local skills accountability board (LSAB) has recently launched its sport and physical activity local skills plan for the region. Local leisure service provider and LSAB member Better/GLL currently offers a range of women-only sessions across multiple activities in its local facilities.
Boxfit, swimming and strength classes at various times allow women the opportunity to work out in a more comfortable social environment at an intensity level they choose and at a time convenient for them.
As almost half (46%) of Asian Muslim women surveyed by Sport England said that they would feel more welcome getting active in women-only spaces, this type of opportunity is a fantastic method of helping an underrepresented group to benefit from physical activity. But while more men are working in the sector than women, how can Better/GLL future-proof this female-led offering?
Through the collaborative work of the LSAB and CIMSPA’s local workforce skills diagnostic surveys, Oxfordshire education group Activate Learning has been able to create a bespoke curriculum for two sport and physical activity courses. With local female students gaining the opportunity to develop skills in demand by employers in their area, this draw of employability will not only attract more women into working in the sector but as a result allow more targeted provisions for women to be provided and delivered by women.
Find out more about local skills
Explore the LSAB’s work in Oxfordshire
Will it work?
As a complex challenge that has outlasted many a fitness craze, boosting women’s activity levels to equal men’s will take time and effort from a broad scope of stakeholders.
While many external factors contribute in different ways for different women, we must ensure that as a sector we are part of the solution as soon and as significantly as possible.
Understanding what barriers are faced and how to support women in breaking those down will go a long way towards making a difference for each individual that sector professionals come into contact with. The best way to allow our workforce to gain that understanding is by defining concepts in professional standards and delivering high-quality training.
Following swiftly behind increased understanding is increased opportunities. When the sector workforce and employers know what is needed and where demand lies, we can work together to focus energy on providing these services and listening to what local women want. This will grow customer bases too, with a huge untapped market waiting to be explored.
The good news is that 41% of women already express a desire to reach the recommended activity levels, so all we need to do is support them to achieve their goals.
