Sport felt out of reach for Laura Turner as a child. The 37-year-old is registered blind and has been severely sight impaired since birth. “I didn’t do PE at all in primary and middle school,” she says. “It was always seen as a health and safety risk. I would just sit to one side in the sports hall.” It wasn’t until she went to a more supportive secondary school that staff encouraged her to get involved. “The teachers said to me: ‘You can do guide running, you can do swimming, you can play goalball, you can do horse riding … basically any sport you can think of.’”
That was all Turner needed to hear. She went on to represent the UK in athletics and goalball – a fast-paced indoor sport where everybody wears blindfolds – and later competed in para dressage with her horse, Chloe. In 2012, she was one of the volunteers to carry the Paralympic torch as it made its way through the UK. “Picking up sport as a youngster meant an awful lot to me,” she adds. “It was the thing I could go to where I didn’t feel like I had a disability.”
The benefits of participating in sport are well established. Beyond the obvious health advantages, those who exercise regularly tend to sleep better, have reduced stress and develop skills such as teamwork.
But when it comes to the 2 million people living with sight loss in the UK, only 11% participate in at least 30 minutes of physical activity per week. Blind and partially sighted people are twice as likely to be inactive as people without sight loss, despite one in three saying there are sport or fitness activities they’d like to try. Gyms can be inaccessible, with equipment not always designed with visually impaired users in mind.
Sport isn’t the only area where people with sight loss face obstacles when it comes to wellbeing. Often, they are unable to get the information they need about everyday health products because the label text is too small for them.
The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) says that “the accessibility of products, information and services is still not an area where people with sight loss have equality of experience”.
This is an issue that the consumer health company Haleon and tech giant Microsoft are attempting to tackle with their new collaboration. People in the UK and US who are visually impaired can now use Microsoft’s Seeing AI app, which works like a talking camera, on Haleon’s consumer health products. When users scan a product’s barcode with their phones, the app will read out information (ingredients, dosage and so on) about that item, making the healthcare information more inclusive.
In the world of sport, huge strides are also being made when it comes to inclusivity. But Alaina MacGregor, chief executive of British Blind Sport (BBS), says the visually impaired community still faces a number of obstacles, starting with travel. “As a blind or partially sighted person, you are very reliant on somebody getting you from A to B, or you need to have the confidence to be able to do that yourself. Getting on public transport or walking to a destination can be very daunting,” she says.
Cost is another factor. Only 27% of people of working age with sight loss are in employment, and 39% say they have difficulty in making ends meet. Finding funds for gym membership, sports equipment, or the fee to join a sports team can feel impossible. And the third obstacle is the willingness of people working in the sport and fitness industry to make adaptations. “We hear from people who feel they can’t go swimming because they don’t know what to do with their guide dog,” MacGregor says. “We have to call and ask reception if they’d mind keeping an eye on the dog while that person goes for a swim. Most leisure facilities, gyms and sports clubs are very receptive. But it’s frustrating that these things aren’t being offered.”
To encourage more participation within its community, BBS runs a number of Have a Go Days around the UK each year, where people can try up to five sports and find out about accessible clubs in their local area. Following the success of an e-learning course for coaching people with a visual impairment, BBS will use some of the funding raised to create bespoke training for those teaching football, tennis, swimming, athletics and goalball. MacGregor hopes some of this can be incorporated into mainstream PGCE education so that PE teachers know how to include those with sight loss in class.
Antonia Bunyan had a different experience at school from Turner, in that she was encouraged into sport from a younger age. The 22-year-old was diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease when she was 11 and is partially sighted. “My teachers didn’t know what they were doing and neither did I, but I was encouraged to give everything a go,” she says. She was assigned a teaching assistant who introduced her to goalball. She’s now part of the Team GB Women’s squad and will be competing at the IBSA World Goalball Championships in Portugal in December.
Visually impaired cricket is another sport with a strong following in the UK, dating back to the 1940s when injured servicemen were returning home after the second world war. David Gavrilovic, vice-chairman of Blind Cricket England & Wales and an ex-England blind cricketer, has seen first-hand the impact that being involved with team sport can have. “It creates a social life for [players], it can aid fitness, confidence and motivation to get out there and do things.” That can be a real lifeline – according to the RNIB (pdf), as 40% of blind or partially sighted people feel moderately or completely cut off from the people and things around them.
Turner now works for BBS as a marketing and social media intern, encouraging other partially sighted people to discover just how life-changing sport can be. She says: “Don’t let bad experiences put you off, and try a few sports before you decide on one thing. There are lots of opportunities to get involved.”
Find out how Haleon is making healthcare labelling accessible for all. Download the Microsoft Seeing AI app for free from the Apple App Store
