You may or may not have heard of physical literacy. It is an idea that is becoming more popular with governments and sports in many countries. It is based on the idea that we as humans are one whole being and not a separate body and brain. ‘Of course we are not separate’ I hear you say….’how can we be? That’s crazy!’ ….But actually that’s exactly what we do in newspapers and magazines, we treat our bodies as an object, something that we ‘train’ or we ‘diet,’ that has to look a certain way and dress in certain clothes. This is really harmful for our mental health and the mental health of our children who are living in a world full of images of ‘perfect’ bodies that they are told they should look like.

The idea of physical literacy is that we learned everything we know and developed who we are through our bodies. From when we were very young we learned through what we saw, felt, touched, smelt, tasted, by climbing, crawling, walking and talking. This is important because if we realise that our bodies are who we are, then we begin to learn to understand ourselves as a moving person and use our bodies more to enjoy life to the full. This is why governments and sports are keen to develop physical literacy. They need more people to be moving and so improve their health. This idea that the brain and body are not separate is important and I will come back to this in more blogs as it helps to explain why moving is vital for the brain to develop.