Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Shutterstock/SpeedKingz

PE to become Leaving Cert subject under new plan to tackle obesity in Ireland

One expert said the plan could “be one of the major tipping points in Ireland’s obesity problem.”

LEAVING CERTIFICATE STUDENTS may get CAO points for being active as part of the government’s plan to tackle obesity.

As part of the Programme for Government published yesterday, the government will “support the introduction of a new Leaving Certificate PE syllabus, as a full optional subject”.

The plan has been widely welcomed. Ireland currently has the third highest rate of obesity in the EU.

Donal O’Shea, chairman of the policy group on obesity at the Royal College of Physicians told TheJournal.ie:

I think putting physical activity in the core of the curriculum of the senior cycle can only be positive.

He said “I am a massive fan of this as part of a solution to the ‘lifestyle driving disease’ epidemic.”

He added:

If it is done properly, it has the potential to be one of the major tipping points in Ireland’s obesity problem and it could be one of those moments you look back on.

This initiative is one aspect of the government’s plan to implement a national physical activity plan along with a national obesity plan.

There is no exact date for when PE will be made a Leaving Cert subject. Previous governments have promised to make it an exam subject beforehand, yet it was never implemented.

However including it in the Programme for Government is a strong sign of commitment from the 32nd Dáil.

“I think we have to accept within the education system that physical literacy is as important for individuals as any other type of literacy,” said Professor O’Shea.

“The more people you have prioritising physical literacy for longer, the better.”

Speaking of more than the physical benefits to young people if PE is introduced to the Leaving Cert curriculum, he said:

“What this is going to mean is, you are going to have to give resources to schools, you are going to have to have a full curriculum that can be examined, you are going to have to tailor it to individuals of different innate physical talent.”

Brendan O’Malley, President of the Physical Education Association of Ireland (PEAI), and a PE teacher in O’Fiach College in Dundalk said:

This will finally allow students the opportunity to showcase their sporting ability, physical literacy, nutritional awareness, to name but a few. Their recognition by means of CAO points is a huge step in the right direction for physical education in Ireland.

Personal experience:

Melissa Morley is an Irish personal trainer, who lost 5 stone in her final year of college. She spoke to TheJounal.ie about her own journey and struggle with weight in school.

I was about 12 stone when I first sat my Leaving Cert and when I had to repeat, I was pushing 12 and a half maybe 13 stone. I really wish there was something different put in place back then especially for repeat students.

1 Morley's Motivation / Melissa Morley Morley's Motivation / Melissa Morley / Melissa Morley

It was such a stressful year and I really turned to food for comfort because there was nothing else. I was too ashamed of my size to take part in PE and we were often allowed to skip the class to study instead for the exams.

The 23 year old thinks the introduction of PE to the Leaving Cert is a great idea. She wrote her thesis on the link between obesity and depression in young adults, and supports more than the physical benefits of the plan.

It’s a fantastic initiative. It’s a break both physically and mentally from exams and books. The boost of endorphin’s are so important for positive mental health which is of course a massive issue with regards to young people and the stress at which they’re under socially and academically.

“I think that as long as it incorporates all these aspects it will be a huge success.” Morley added.

Obesity in Ireland:

Last month a report in the Lancet medical journal was published that tracked the obesity levels in 200 countries from 1975 to 2014.
The Journal.ie did a FactCheck on the Lancet report as well as figures from the World Health Organisation to show Irish adults have the 3rd highest rate of obesity in the EU.

Newly appointed minister for Health, Simon Harris, spoke yesterday at the Healthcare Leaders masterclass 2016 about the work ahead of the Department of Health and what they have achieved to date saying:

“We’ve made great progress on smoking and now we need a similar focus on alcohol misuse, obesity and physical inactivity.”

Along with the plan for national physical activity plan, the Department of Health also announced there will be a levy on “sugar sweetened drinks”, although the exact amount has not been confirmed.

Read: Your can of Coke is about to cost more – a tax on sugary drinks is on the way >

Read:  Children of women who gain excess weight during pregnancy are more likely to be obese >

Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.

Close
83 Comments
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Maurice Danaher
    Favourite Maurice Danaher
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:28 PM

    Current national debt is circa €190B. Is Noonan giving up on getting the ECB to finance the Bank debt and get it deducted from the €190B. This was one of FG’s election promises. The real national debt figure is probably close to €500B if we were to accrue all PRSI pension liabilities. Yesterday’s article in the Sunday Times is frightening on this.

    112
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Winston Teardrops
    Favourite Winston Teardrops
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:33 PM

    Why would they include future liabilities? At that rate you could bring future expected revenue into the equation!

    61
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Emily Elephant
    Favourite Emily Elephant
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:40 PM

    Because as from 2017, we have to account for unfunded liabilities to give a true picture of national debt. Just as companies have had to do for years. There’s no real difference between a bond you have to repay and a pension you’re committed to paying, except in accounting terms.

    51
    See 11 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Maurice Danaher
    Favourite Maurice Danaher
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:01 PM

    Well said. Couldn’t have put it better myself.

    19
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Kate Ellen Egan
    Favourite Kate Ellen Egan
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:04 PM

    Where will the money to fund these early repayments come from ? I know it’s a stupid question but does anyone know the answer ?

    11
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Robin Tobin
    Favourite Robin Tobin
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:11 PM

    Maurice the minister is doing lip service for the next election. Europe is in receivership and has told Noonan no to what you have noted. It would be nice but our politician didn’t talk hard they were the good boys in the class. So Europe expects them to keep paying.

    28
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Alien8
    Favourite Alien8
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:15 PM

    They will be coming from 15 year loans/bond issues so the banks will be lending this money to repay them back early.

    10
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute VoiceOfVanguard
    Favourite VoiceOfVanguard
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:23 PM

    Wait ’til Ireland doesn’t get the retroactive bank recapitalization.

    And when – not if – new international corporate tax rules take effect from 2016 (OECD), at least €50 billion, or half the annual value of services exports will be vapourized.

    Plus, some multi-nationals have also said they will leave when that happens i.e. when they have to start paying a lot more corporation tax back home on top of high wages in Ireland.

    Hold on to your tin hats.

    16
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Richard Rodgers
    Favourite Richard Rodgers
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:28 PM

    Emily
    Perhaps now the penny might drop when we consider the point John Bruton was making when discussing such liabilities recently.!
    He was massively abused on this site when his opinion about defaulting by the State on pensions etc when the alternative was bankruptcy .
    How quickly we shoot the messenger in Ireland rather than trying to deal with realities.

    9
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute SeanieRyan
    Favourite SeanieRyan
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 8:14 PM

    Still think that a debt deal will have to be done.

    The EU live in a fantasy world where real economic reality is denied and put on long finger.

    They blew their chance to resolve the Euro crisis.

    11
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Ben Gunn
    Favourite Ben Gunn
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 8:32 PM

    That would apply to unfunded civil service pensions but not to PRSI pensions. That liability is subject to year by year legislation and, in theory, could be reduced or abolished by a new Finance Act. It won’t happen of course, but the possibilty means that it is not a reckonable long term debt.

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Stephen Brady
    Favourite Stephen Brady
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 8:47 PM

    What do you mean give up, they didn’t even ask for feck sake

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Kerry Blake
    Favourite Kerry Blake
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 9:48 PM

    ohhh I feel another seismic shift coming on….

    7
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Huggy Bear
    Favourite Huggy Bear
    Report
    Sep 8th 2014, 9:12 AM

    Property tax
    Water charges
    USC
    ….any if these terms familiar to you????

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute IrishGravyTrain
    Favourite IrishGravyTrain
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:21 PM

    No financial penalty for paying off loans early. Ha ha. We should be getting a discount for paying early.

    107
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Winston Teardrops
    Favourite Winston Teardrops
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:30 PM

    Don’t get into finance. I can tell by this one comment that it’s not for you.

    75
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Tony Skillington
    Favourite Tony Skillington
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:51 PM

    We should never have had them in the first place…ffs

    48
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Peter King
    Favourite Peter King
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:23 PM

    Getting a bit annoyed with this sycophantic attitude the government has with Europe.

    77
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John Deegan
    Favourite John Deegan
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:38 PM

    What, you feel no surge of patriotic pride when our minister begs the faceless financiers to kindly allow us to give us a big ball of cash?

    32
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John Deegan
    Favourite John Deegan
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:39 PM

    * you a big ball of cash *

    7
    See 8 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Mike O Neill
    Favourite Mike O Neill
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:00 PM
    7
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Richard Rodgers
    Favourite Richard Rodgers
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:39 PM

    Peter.
    What a brain and what a genius. Please tell us how yo can save the State a cool three hundred and seventy five million Euro a year as proposed by Minister Noonan so that we don’t have to politely ask our creditors for agreement to vary the terms of our Bailout.
    You must be a whizz with figures and I envy the confidence with which you stride across these pages.
    I showed your comments to a colleague and I could see straight away that he misunderstands you. In tact what he said about you couldn’t be printed here but all great men Peter suffer from such slingshots!

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Paul Mc
    Favourite Paul Mc
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 8:09 PM

    @Rodgers as per usual your wisdom knows no bounds you and your comments are wasted on the journal.
    Its time you took up your true vocation and that in my humble oppinion is that of chief Fine Gael ass wipe.

    25
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Richard Rodgers
    Favourite Richard Rodgers
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 8:22 PM

    Paul
    Thanks! Your opinion in your own words is indeed humble and it is quite clear that you never aspired beyond that though instinct probably told you that there was enough material in you to heft a Sinn Fein shovel but you would need to be told what to do after that.
    The world needs simple folk Paul and at least you have recognised that!

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Stephen Grehan
    Favourite Stephen Grehan
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 8:37 PM

    Well said Paul Mc. When Rodgers is in the company of Edna its like a scene from the film The Human Centipede.

    13
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Thomas Newell
    Favourite Thomas Newell
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 9:09 PM

    hows life as the chief arse kisser and male cheer leader to enda and his brigade richard cos clearly you are one of them patriots big nose hogan was on about

    10
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Kerry Blake
    Favourite Kerry Blake
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 9:54 PM

    So Richard hows that seismic shift of Enda the statesman performing these days?

    10
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Richard Rodgers
    Favourite Richard Rodgers
    Report
    Sep 3rd 2014, 12:01 AM

    Kerry
    Whaaaaaaaaat?

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute E=MC2
    Favourite E=MC2
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:58 PM

    When the cost of Noonan’s very generous minster’s pension to which he does not contribute a cent is added to the debt it could be the last straw that breaks the taxpayer’s back.

    36
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Phillip Hogan
    Favourite Phillip Hogan
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:23 PM

    Wow, we are so lucky.

    25
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Alien8
    Favourite Alien8
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:53 PM

    Looking at the returns, it is all rosy for Noonan – revenue’s new mantra is to suck every last penny of savings and profit out of small business and their employees and to present it as a gift to some unelected ex-politicians and expect a pat on his obnoxious head.

    “Look what I brought you – someone else’s debt, maybe I’ve ruined a few small businesses and taxed earnings and savings from Irish people to the hilt, but as long as we’re all happy let’s make this look like good news to the ‘media’ – you’ll print it like that, you property funded news website”…

    36
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Ger Ryan
    Favourite Ger Ryan
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 7:29 PM

    At the end of the 1st 1/4 2008 this country was heading towards a deficit of 22bn euros. In d last 5 yrs we have undertaken a huge social experimenr in how to balance d books without strikes/riots etc and we have nearly made it. There is huge credit due to fg and lab and enormous credit due to d dept of finance and public expenditure.

    19
    See 3 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Stephen Brady
    Favourite Stephen Brady
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 8:52 PM

    Why should lab and fg get any credit. Ff told them what to do before they got booted out.

    11
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Colin Mccormack
    Favourite Colin Mccormack
    Report
    Sep 3rd 2014, 3:53 AM

    How is it any credit to them, it’s a credit to the irish people not the politicians. The politicians didn’t stop riots they hid away in Leinster house and quietly stripped us of our pride and dignity and left most of us demoralised and close to bankruptcy. Suicides are through the roof, let’s see these magnificent politicians of yours deal with that elephant in the roof. Crime.? It’s bandit country in ireland again, those shower deserve no credit for anything.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Ger Ryan
    Favourite Ger Ryan
    Report
    Sep 3rd 2014, 7:22 AM

    The simple fact if the matter is that this country of 4.5million people withdrew over 16bn from circulation over the past 5 years. Politicans put their names forward as spokespeople for that. You didnt. You come on forums and talk abt how bad it is. Pokiticans arent stupid or even greedy anymore. They all know the suicide numbers, the high taxes, the unemployment but they still put their names forward. You didnt. it is easier spew vitriol from d sidelines

    2
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Alan O'connor
    Favourite Alan O'connor
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:06 PM

    More bad news for the Shinners. Tax take up. Ahead of forecast.

    Where are the Shinners anyway?

    I suppose it’s hard for them to spin positives into negatives. Especially when there’s an election coming up. Just doesn’t appeal to voters.

    But it’s all they have.

    21
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Thomas Newell
    Favourite Thomas Newell
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 9:13 PM

    so anyone that has a different opinion to them muppets in power are shinners………explains the mental state of the cheerleaders for the likes of the FG/LB/FF crowd on hear…..deluded one trick ponies who believe anything that comes out of the lot in the dail

    14
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John Hartigan
    Favourite John Hartigan
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:08 PM

    Election spew has started

    21
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Nosmo King
    Favourite Nosmo King
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:11 PM

    ” Noonan ” and ” charm ” in the same sentence !! . It is just so wrong, Jack Horgan-Jones. Just so, so wrong.

    16
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute VinHeffer89
    Favourite VinHeffer89
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:05 PM

    Will Mr Noonan be dancing suggestively for Mario Draghi et al as well?

    16
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Susan Adair Farrelly
    Favourite Susan Adair Farrelly
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 8:54 PM

    Charm?? God help Europe…

    8
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Jarlath Murphy
    Favourite Jarlath Murphy
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 5:41 PM

    Jam?………………………………..
    ‘…………………………?…………….
    ……..?………………………………….

    NEVER!

    8
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute DM
    Favourite DM
    Report
    Sep 2nd 2014, 6:16 PM

    Why was my two comments deleted?

    7
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Brehon Law
    Favourite Brehon Law
    Report
    Sep 3rd 2014, 8:16 AM

    Just in time for the general election!

    2
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds