Our new 'It Starts Outside' campaign champions the importance of girls playing outside, featuring never-before-seen childhood photos of Arsenal Women.
Getting active is proven to help improve children's mental wellbeing. Yet new figures from Sport England’s Active Lives 2024-25 survey reveal that across England, girls are 22% less likely than boys to be active outdoors outside school - a gap that begins in primary school and persists across regions.
In London, that widens to 26%, despite being home to Arsenal Women stars such as Chloe Kelly and Alessia Russo, while Beth Mead’s home region of Yorkshire and the Humber are 25% less likely. Kate Dale, Director of Sport England’s This Girl Can campaign, said: “Our research proves that the gender activity gap begins at a young age and persists into adulthood, depriving many girls and women of the joy, connection, and incredible health benefits of an active life. We want all girls to grow up with the belief and confidence that playing and being active outdoors is something that they can be part of.”
New research commissioned by Dirt Is Good further highlights how early this drop-off begins, with girls in the UK starting to disengage from outdoor play from as young as eight years old - missing out on the confidence, resilience and joy that comes from unstructured play. The data also reveals a stark generational shift. Nearly six in ten UK parents (58%) say they regularly played freely outside as children, compared to just one in three girls today (33%). More than half of parents (54%) say their daughters would rather be indoors, while one in five girls actively avoid outdoor play because they don’t like getting dirty, highlighting how early perceptions and barriers begin to take hold.
For the athletes and role models inspiring the next generation, playing outside was a critical part of their early development and a key foundation for their future success. Before the professional pitches and packed stadiums, they played in parks, pavements, estates and back gardens.
To tackle this, Dirt Is Good (known as Persil in UK) partnered with Arsenal Women to It Starts Outside. The campaign features never-before-seen childhood photos of the players alongside reflections on their early experiences, showing that a love of sport begins with everyday outdoor play.
To celebrate Chloe Kelly being shortlisted for this year’s Sports Personality of the Year award, alongside the England Women’s Team nomination in the Team of the Year category, Dirt Is Good created a striking print and OOH campaign. It features never-before-seen childhood photos of Chloe and her Arsenal and England teammates Beth Mead, Alessia Russo and Lotte Wubben-Moy, alongside reflections on their early experiences, sharing nostalgic memories of playing freely outside long before organised training or competition. Their stories highlight that a love of sport often begins away from the pitch, through everyday outdoor play that allows children to move freely, experiment and have fun.
The campaign ran across print and prominent outdoor billboards, appearing from Emirates Stadium matchdays to fan journeys during major fixtures. In these environments, audiences are already immersed in the emotion of sport. By placing childhood images of elite players into these high-impact spaces, outdoor collapsed past and present into a single frame, making the message immediate and unmissable, and reinforcing that confidence, resilience and future potential all start outside. In print, the campaign appeared within contextual real-time coverage of women’s football, aligning with moments of attention and linking them to the core message and belief.
Beyond media, Dirt Is Good and Arsenal Women engaged directly with young girls, working with primary schools to provide practical support for parents, inviting families to experience the campaign at Emirates Stadium, and creating opportunities for girls to rediscover the joy of outdoor play.
The campaign resonated far beyond delivered 2.5M+ earned reach, 7.3M+ total reach globally, 86K+ total engagements and the brand’s highest ever social engagement rate (6.5%) and open rate (25.7%) across DIG & Persil channels
Tati Lindenberg, Home Care Chief Marketing Officer, said: “The statistics highlighting the disparity between boys’ and girls’ outdoor play are sobering, and shows how much more needs to be done to reduce the gender gap. Through this campaign, we can see the valuable role that outdoors play has had in the journeys of Arsenal Women,
so it’s vital that we normalise the value of getting dirty so the next generation of talent can follow in the footsteps of their heroes and dream of playing at Emirates Stadium themselves one day.”
Source Sport England x IPSOS:
22% less likely refers to RELATIVE gap between boys & girls aged 5-16 who take part in sport and physical activity outside whilst not in school for more than 30+ minutes a day (52% of boys v 41% of girls) based on an average per week.
School year group range is year 1-11 with parents responding for those in year 1-2 and pupils in years 3-11 responding themselves. Statistics refer to outside school hours. Some of the activities are done on school premises but as part of clubs outside school hours.
Methodology: Online survey carried out via a random probability survey of schools in England using a sample from DfE’s Get Information About Schools data. Carried out between September 2024 and July 2025 by Ipsos on behalf of Sport England. Schools were recruited by Active Partnerships. The data has been weighted. England age 5-16 years Girls unweighted base 60,268; Boys unweighted base 58,409
London age 5-16 years Girls unweighted base 5,048; Boys unweighted base 5,008
Yorkshire and the Humber age 5-16 years Girls unweighted base 3,499; Boys unweighted base 3,492
South East age 5-16 years Girls unweighted base 9,687; Boys unweighted base 9,802
Own Research:
Independent research was conducted amongst 1,000 UK parents of children aged 4–14 with a daughter and son, by OnePoll in March 2026.