Do You Feel Too Self-Conscious To Exercise In Public? #ThisGirlCan Might Help...

The This Girl Can campaign aims to motivate 'real women' to work out.

This Girl Can is a bold new, and genuinely brilliant, campaign aiming to tackle the barriers that prevent women from exercising more, namely the fear of what we look like when we're huffing, puffing and sweating into our fraying sports bras.

According to new research, two million fewer women than men are active, but 75 per cent want to do more. Sport England’s Active People Survey found that it was fear of judgement about their appearance and ability that prevents most women from doing more exercise.

The new campaign, from Sport England, sees women of all shapes, sizes, ages, backgrounds and abilities sweating and jiggling as they work out. With straplines like "Sweating like a pig, feeling like a fox" and "I kick balls, deal with it", it's a powerful campaign.

Sport England CEO, Jennie Price, said: 'Before we began this campaign, we looked very carefully at what women were saying about why they felt sport and exercise was not for them. Some of the issues, like time and cost, were familiar, but one of the strongest themes was a fear of judgement. Worries about being judged for being the wrong size, not fit enough and not skilled enough came up time and again. Every single woman I have talked to about this campaign – and that is now hundreds – has identified with this, and it is that fear of not being ‘good enough’ in some way, and the fear that you are the only one who feels like that, that we want to address. 'In This Girl Can we want to tell the real story of women who exercise and play sport. They come in all shapes and sizes and all levels of ability. They have a myriad of reasons for doing what they do. If you are wondering if you should join them – or carry on – this campaign says it really doesn’t matter if you are a bit rubbish or completely brilliant, the main thing is that you are a woman and you are doing something, and that deserves to be celebrated.'

Feeling inspired? 'Course you are. Here are 5 new and fun exercise classes to try in 2015