The fittest male and female secondary school students in Ireland have been revealed

Conor Heneghan

22,764 students took part in the Irish Life Health Schools Fitness Challenge in 2016.

Matthew O’Leary from Bunclody Vocational School in Wexford and Louise O’Dowd from Presentation Secondary School in Milltown in Kerry were awarded overall fittest boy and girl at a prize-giving ceremony in Croke Park for the 2016 Irish Life Health Schools Fitness Challenge.

Presentation Secondary School in Milltown (pictured below) was also named as Ireland’s fittest school overall, while there were awards for schools in Dublin, Monaghan, Cork and Laois.

Last year, over a quarter of all Irish secondary schools signed up for the challenge with 22,764 students taking part in total, more than any previous year.

Results from the fitness challenge found that boys in Irish secondary schools were 42% fitter than girls by the time they reached fourth year, as opposed to a difference of 32% in fitness levels between the sexes in first year of secondary school.

Image via Facebook/Presentation Secondary School Milltown

The Irish Life Health Schools Fitness Challenge has been in existence for the last five years and in that time, data collected from over 120,000 participants has enabled the creation of the first ever standardised fitness norms for Irish secondary school children.

This will allow Irish school children to evaluate and rank their own fitness levels in relation to age and gender specific normative data.

The programme was overseen by Professor Niall Moyna in the Centre for Preventive Medicine, Dublin City University.

Commenting on the programme, Moyna said: “Any form of physical activity is better than none. We should move away from the rigidity of the current PE curriculum to short periods of physical activity that encourage senior cycle students, particularly girls, to stay active.

“The new Junior Certificate PE curriculum is a paradigm shift that is long overdue and, if properly resourced, has the potential to have a profoundly positive impact on the current and future health of Irish teenagers.”