SOME encouraging figures were released this week from Sport England as they reviewed the gender gap between women and men in terms of participation in sport and reported that there were three sports leading the field in this change: Netball, hockey and gymnastics. These three sports confirmed that participation numbers were on the up and things were improving significantly.

This news comes on the back of the This Girl Can campaign, which received mixed reviews on its launch early in 2015. At that point a study found that there were two million fewer women than men between the ages of 14 and 40 who were physically active on a regular basis.

The solution came in at a major cost, with some estimates putting it between £10 million and £15m as it was promoted through primetime TV ads, billboards, cinema and shopping centre screens, putting images of real women exercising on the national stage and using social media to start a debate about attitudes to women’s sport.

One of the overriding views given on why the numbers were so low is that women were frightened of being judged by others on appearance, ability or how they chose to spend time on themselves, and I wondered why this was, just for a moment.

On a daily basis, should you pick up a newspaper, the images that you will see are of female celebrities, most of whom have had their photographs airbrushed. Even without airbrushing images used are normally when the individual is attending an event, dressed to the nines, with the assistance of the latest make-up tricks and not forgetting every glamour girl’s best friend, good lighting.

So what do you think this is doing to young girls, who very rarely get the opportunity to see real images of women after they have worked out, sweating, hair out of place and with a red, flushed face?

It is obviously easy to give them unrealistic expectations of themselves, and how they should look at all times, given that they very rarely see the alternative, and this is where the rot sets in. Doubts about their own image in comparison to the ‘goddess’ eats away at their confidence and self-esteem.

No wonder it takes a campaign to show them the real face of women.

Thankfully there have been a few strong celebrity voices raising concerns on this practice.

Emma Watson, actress, model and feminist, for one has levelled criticism at the “dangerously unhealthy” obsession giving the need to portray women looking perfect; she admitted that it had taken its toll on her personally.

SWiS has been carrying out a little survey of its own, looking at the coverage of women sports in four of our national newspapers; this makes really depressive reading and you can see our survey in full on our Facebook page.

But just to give you a flavour of one day, we had more than 101 pages of sport collectively covered by four different newspapers. Two had no women’s sport at all, while one of the other two had one-third of a page on curling and the other with one-fifth of a page on speed skating and one-sixth on badminton.

Is it any wonder so many young girls can’t relate to sport when they see so little of it on a day-to-day basis?

I saw some real women on Saturday, Caledonia Pride, Scotland’s first female professional basketball team, who met rivals Cardiff Mt Archers at Oriam, the National High Performance Centre for Sport at Herriot Watt University.

This was their first home game since entering into the WBBL and it was an exciting day, yet there was no mention of this in the press.

The girl’s confidence was fully restored after a disappointing start to the game by the support of a great home crowd, and that leg up eventually saw the teams level at the final whistle at 69-69.

Unfortunately it wasn’t to be Caledonia’s day, as after extra time the result was 74-83 in Cardiff’s favour. But what a show and what great role models.

It was a great day out for anyone interested in watching some good sport and they play another home fixture tomorrow against Leicester Riders. Get along if you can and lend your support. Take the family with you too, as it is a great day out.