MEGAN Cassidy loved playing football at her primary school until boys started "mucking around", trying to keep girls out of the game and spoiled her fun.
Megan, 11, is nearing the crucial age-range when a growing number of girls give up sport entirely, discouraged by old-fashioned competitive games and unflattering gym clothes making them feel self-conscious about their changing bodies.
But luckily
for Megan, her school is taking part in an innovative pilot project aimed at keeping girls active and she is now learning kick-boxing, music, rollerblading and gymnastics.
Yesterday, Stewart Maxwell, the sports minister, announced that the Fit for Girls programme, managed by sportscotland and the Youth Sports Trust, is to be rolled out across all of Scotland's secondary schools.
The aim is to see girls follow the example of Julie Fleeting, the Scottish women's football team's top scorer. Ms Fleeting persisted despite the obstacles in her way and yesterday said girls needed to be encouraged to keep playing sport.
Megan, a pupil at Our Lady's Primary School in Perth, said: "Boys keep themselves fit all the time because they are always playing football, leaving nothing for us.
"Now we go to the girls' club at St Columba's High School and are doing things we'd never tried before. There are no boys there to laugh at us, so it is much better. We also get taught about healthy eating – things like drinking water instead of fizzy drinks."
The pilot scheme, which has been running in 27 schools across Scotland since 2005, has been a resounding success, with average participation rates increasing from 18 per cent to 26 per cent in three-quarters of the schools involved.
The programme is vital because physical activity among girls declines sharply as they get older. At age 11-12 only 56 per cent of girls meet the national recommendation for physical activity of one hour most days per week. This figure drops to just 41 per cent by the time girls are aged 13-15.
Girls in the pilot programme have been taking part in Bollywood-style dancing, learning pilates and have been successful in getting hair straighteners and extra time to reapply their make-up after sports lessons, which they said was a necessity.
Speaking at the launch at the Edinburgh International Climbing Arena in Ratho, near Edinburgh, Mr Maxwell said: "The main thing we want to do is reverse the trend which sees girls aged 11-16 falling out of sport. Statistics show the drop-out rate at this stage is really quite dramatic, which has repercussions for health and wellbeing.
"We have identified the need to broaden out the activities beyond traditional sports such as hockey and netball and offer classes like dance and cheerleading.
"Hopefully, this will act as a bridge into sports or, equally importantly, encourage them to keep up these activities beyond their teens."
He added: "It will also open up new vistas and could encourage the girls to think about training as PE teachers, or coaches, or working in the leisure industry."
The three-year rolling programme, backed by a £530,000 funding package, will provide five Youth Support Trust workers to provide training for teachers to set up specially tailored activities for girls.
Liz McColgan, the Olympic and Commonwealth medallist, supports the programme. She said: "It's very important to put everything into finding new ways of bringing girls into sport. It could be alternative sports like indoor rock climbing, or mainstream pilates, yoga and dance. But we do have to face up to the fact that we live in a society where looks are important. The girls don't want to ruin their make-up, and if you give them an extra ten minutes in the changing room to get sorted out so the boys don't laugh at them, it takes away some of the excuses for not taking part."
Another positive aspect of the programme was that it took time to speak to gym teachers about how best to encourage teenage girls, she added.
"You might have a girl who is feeling down and doesn't want to join in, or feels that she is not cut out for competitive sports. If that's the case, the teachers are told it might be an idea to say something like: "Hey, it's OK to feel like that. Let's try this instead".
Louise Martin, the woman behind Glasgow's successful 2014 Commonwealth Games bid who, as a 15-year-old, made the finals of the 100m and 200m backstroke at the 1962 Commonwealth Games in Perth, Australia, said that there were many seemingly insignificant things inhibiting girls from enjoying sport.
"Teenage girls are at an age when bodies are altering, and they just hate showing off their figures. They don't like wearing shorts, they will make any excuse not to take part and there can also be quite strong peer pressure on them," said Ms Martin.
"We discussed these problems with the girls themselves, as well as teachers taking part in the pilot scheme, and found some straightforward answers. The girls wanted to wear jogging bottoms or loose clothing instead of tight sports clothes, and they enjoyed an outside gym trainer.
"Some of them wanted to try ra-ra dancing, and in other schools if they attended three activity classes they got a lesson from a beautician or a manicure," the sportscotland member said.
Scotland is facing an obesity crisis, with a report last year revealing the country is second only to the US in the developed world for overweight people. Figures showed one man in four and one woman in five is obese. It also revealed that one girl in seven in Scotland is overweight and one boy in six. The problem is taking a toll on the nation's health. The report said almost 500,000 cases of high blood pressure can be attributable to obesity, as well as more than 5,000 strokes a year and almost 30 per cent of all colon cancer cases – about 650 annually.
The cost of treating obesity-related disease was estimated at £171 million six years ago. The report blames Scots' sedentary lifestyles and diet, and warns that current attempts to stem obesity are failing.
This year, schools in Scotland are to ban sweets and fizzy drinks from vending machines and canteens will limit the number of times they can serve chips in a week.
SCOTS STAR JULIE BEAT THE ODDS TO BE WINNER JULIE Fleeting donned her first football strip at the age of six and rose swiftly through the ranks from playing football in the street to become Scottish captain and star striker for Arsenal women's football team.
But the 27-year-old from Kilwinning in Ayrshire, who has scored 100 goals for Scotland in 100 games, is the first to admit that despite getting every help from her parents she came up against barriers which could have stalled her career.
"My dad, Jim Fleeting, played for Norwich City, Ayr, Morton and Clyde and went on to manage Kilmarnock Football Club so I grew up with sport. My mother was a keen hockey player and our whole family was encouraged to be active.
"When I was girl I loved team games and competing against the boys. Being the only girl didn't bother me and I gave as good as I got. For as long as I can remember I was kicking a football around in the street. I played for the local boys' club and was treated just the same as lads my age.
"But then at the age of 13 I had to stop playing mixed football and struggled to find girls' teams. It meant travelling as far as Aberdeen to get a game which could be a bit annoying. If I had been a boy there would have been at least ten local teams for me to play in or against and there would have been no problem. I can see how easy it might be for a girl faced with that problem to drop out if she didn't have back-up at home or from a club."
As a PE teacher at St Matthews's Academy in Saltcoats, Ms Fleeting says she understands that while some of the difficulties her female pupils face in participating in sport might be more easily solved, they are a big deal to the teenagers themselves.
"Hairstyles are an issue. Girls are self conscious and don't like tying their hair back for PE because they have spent an hour using hair straighteners. People might laugh at that, but as a teacher I understand completely the disruption it can cause.
"Girls would also prefer to have single sex sports classes. That sort of thing never bothered me because I was a bit of a tomboy.
