Few Taking Up Sport

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31540, 30 November 1967, Page 26

Few Taking Up Sport

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, Nov. 29. Many doctors believed one of the reasons for the high rate of illegitimacy in New Zealand was the small number of people who were encouraged to take part in sport, said the president of the Auckland Amateur Sports Association (Mr B. C. Simpson) last night. At the half-yearly meeting of the association, Mr Simpson said that if more people were taking part in sport un-

til they were 18 or 19, it would relieve a desperate social problem. More and more governments overseas, especially in the emerging Asian and Eastern European countries, said Mr Simpson, were actively encouraging their people to take part in sport. An athletics delegate, Mr R. W. Cheater, said the decreasing numbers in sport was now a social, not just a sporting, problem. “Sport can no longer be left to those who are gifted,” he said “with the others sitting

: on the bank watching." Many people were now facing heart attacks at 50 and the present generation was i taking still less exercise. “How young will they be I when they get heart attacks?” ■ asked Mr Cheater. “The pub- ! lie would be shocked if it knew how few school-leavers take part in sport.”