The recent epidemic of sleep deprivation during the dramatic Ashes cricket series has once again highlighted the Australian passion for sport. A drive around city suburbs or country towns on a weekend may reassure one that thousands of Australians are still playing sport. However, such reassurance should be tempered by data which suggest that we are increasingly doing the driving rather than the playing.1-3 For example, the proportion of children and their parents who were physically active in Australia dropped between 5% and 11% from 1985 to the late 1990s.4
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- Centre for Sports Medicine Research and Education, School of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC.
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