More sports, less medicine

Valérie Fourneyron is the French Minister of Sport and Youth and last December presented to the general managers of Regional Health Agencies (ARS), her priorities and the will to place sport at the service of  public health politics.

“My career as a sports doctor … took me a long time to commit myself because the sport is recognized by all as an instrument of health and a well-being factor for everyone …” And she defended this approach talking to the presidents of the sports federation, to whom he expressed the priorities you intend to bring forward for the French sport:

1. The reduction of inequality of access to sports
2. The high-level sport and support sporting excellence
3. The promotion of sport as a factor in public health and well-being

She brought the support of the results of scientific research on the effects of sport for all. In particular she stressed that there is a 20% reduction in the likelihood of colon cancer and breast cancer and 30% for recurrences.

Must be diffuse the idea of ​​sports rather than taking medicines, for example by reducing the hypertension or insulin in diabetics. “Sport plays a therapeutic role. This must be said and repeated by doctors and health professionals.” For these reasons, in October, she presented a program called “Sport, Health and well-being.”

She said that there must be another vision of health that is not only prohibition, where the sport has become a synonym for primary prevention. “I’ll have to modify and develop the clubs and sports associations and leisure offer because they must oriented to the general public, including those who are further away from the sport.”

In his speech, there are also some proposals already realized at regional level and she concluded citing the French prime minister, Francois Hollande, who often repeats that the crisis does not make sport less necessary but even more essential.