Health Secretary Andy Burnham will be making waves today as he joins thousands of swimmers for the Great North Swim in Lake Windermere.
The Secretary of State, who recently announced his ambition to move England from 'relegation candidates to play-off contenders' in the international physical activity league tables, is putting policy into practice and taking to the water for the one mile swim.
At Lake Windermere today he will also announce that the winner of the Swim4Life competition to invent a new swimming stroke is the Dolphinella stroke invented by Ella Batchelor, aged 11, from Essex. It attracted about two thirds of the votes by visitors to the Change4Life website.
The Dolphinella stroke was chosen from more than 300 new ways to swim invented by children up and down the country as part of Swim4Life, the latest part of the groundbreaking national Change4Life movement.
Andy Burnham said:
“Swimming is a brilliant way for everybody to get active and for kids to get their 60 active minutes a day – they can burn off energy without even really noticing. It’s great for older adults and those with mobility problems as well.
“We had an overwhelming response to our Swim4Life competition that asked kids to invent a brand new swimming stroke.
“Ella’s swimming stroke was inspired by her love of dolphins. To swim the Dolphinella, clasp your hands together, put your arms out in front of you and kick your legs together like a fin.
“I’ll be sticking to front crawl when I join thousands of others for the Great North Swim in Lake Windermere today.”
Swim4Life aims to help more families get active in the water, building on the success of schemes such as the Government’s Free Swim initiative, which launched in April this year.
Over 20 million young people and senior citizens are now eligible for the programme. Latest statistics show that those aged 16 and under and 60 and over have had 4.4 million free swims.
To encourage even more councils make their pools available we have pledged £1 million for councils who didn’t sign up first time round and we’re looking at ways to support existing free swimming councils to innovate and extend the free services they are offering.
Reflecting on the success of the scheme, Andy Burnham added:
“It’s no surprise that people have jumped at the chance to swim for free but the latest figures show its been even more popular than we’d imagined.
“I want to see even more councils offering free swimming and a range of opportunities to encourage more people to swim, more often.
“Change4Life aims to kick start a lifestyle revolution for everyone in order to halt the rising tide of obesity – the biggest health challenge we face. We are taking action to prevent more serious illness and high costs to the health service and the country in years to come.”