YOUNG women are being encouraged to take up new sports and embark upon a healthier life as part of a national campaign.
Sportivate, the national charity which ran the This Girl Can campaign, is trying to encourage women to take up a new sport.
Research, carried out by Sportivate and Sport England, has revealed that fewer women than men play sport regularly, two million fewer 14 to 40-year-olds in total.
Despite this, 75 per cent of women say they want to be more active and that is the focus of the campaigns. The significant gender gap, with two million more men than women exercising or playing sport regularly needs to be tackled with a hands-on approach.
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When we live in a country that has growing problems with levels of inactivity, fitness and obesity among children that follow them into their adult lives, identifying and removing barriers to women and girls playing sport is more important now than ever before. The hours of social media consumption and video gaming playing needs to be cut back and more exercise and interaction should be introduced.
Cumbria Cricket Ltd has teamed up with the Sportivate's women's initiative by trying to get more women and girls in south Cumbria playing cricket.
Kirby Linton, 27, of Shearwater Crescent, Walney, has taken up the role of lead coach in some all female cricket taster sessions, run by Cumbria Cricket Ltd.
Kirby, who plays at senior county standard and is also a part of her local club South Lakes Maidens at Lindal Moor, is passionate about getting more girls in to the sport.
She said: "Growing up playing cricket I could see that it was definitely a male orientated environment, but what I want girls to realise is that it can be a great sport for girls too and has a brilliant social aspect to it.
"Cricket does have some similarities to sports like rugby and football in that it is very male dominated and can initially look quite tough with hard balls and players wearing protective helmets. That is not what these sessions are about, we want girls to come along and just have some fun.
"We will be concentrating on all the fun aspects of the game and really the whole point is to encourage girls who might not be doing any sport at all to introduce a little more sport in to their lives."
The Sportivate sessions led by Kirby take place at Dash at Dowdales School in Dalton at 5.30pm on Monday evenings. They will run for another month and any females from the ages of 11-25 are welcome.
After the initial This Girl Can campaign in 2015, Sport England saw a big increase in the number of women wanting to get involved in sports. This current push that Kirby and Cumbria Cricket Ltd are involved in hopes to make use of some of that momentum and give even more women and girls the confidence to get more active.
During the campaign Sport England found that millions of women and girls are afraid to exercise because of fear of judgment.
The Sportivate women's campaigns have been the first to feature women who sweat and jiggle as they exercise. They are trying to dispel the perfect images projected by sportswear campaigns and supermodels of perfect body image and flawless make-up that can make women feel self conscious and inadequate.
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Kirby, who is a batswoman, said: "Cricket is a great place to start if you are reluctant to go to the gym or if you are worried about your fitness levels.
"There is a bit of running involved but it's not continuous and in general it is not too high intensity as a sport.
"Especially in these sessions, nobody will be taking themselves too seriously and is targeted at women who are quite inactive, so there will be no judgement whatsoever."
Kirby hopes that women and girls who enjoy the sessions will consider trying more sports too or look at joining up with South Lakes Maidens.
Rules of cricket: the basics
The aim of cricket is simple – score more than the opposition.
1. Two teams, both with 11 players, take it in turns to bat and bowl.
2. When one team is batting, they try and score as many runs as they can by hitting the ball around an oval field.
3. The other team must get them out by bowling the ball overarm at the stumps, which are at either end of a 22-yard area called a wicket.
4. The bowling team can get the batsmen out by hitting the stumps or catching the ball.
5. Once the batting team is all out, the teams swap over and they then become the bowling side.
6. Each time a team bats it is known as their innings. Teams can have one or two innings depending on how long there is to play.
7. Whoever scores the most runs wins. But a cricket match can be drawn too.
8. A draw can happen when the team bowling last fails to get all the batsmen out. But this is only when there are two innings per team.
9. If there is one innings, the only way a match can be drawn is if the two teams score the same amount of runs.
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