Will London 2012 inspire the British People to live more active lives?

Not round here, they are all fat overweight lard buckets.

for me all that these games will do if put the country in even more debt. we can barely afford to fight 2 wars and run the country and the olympics are another debt we definately don't need. it wont change the sports lvl or obesity lvls enough to be worthwhile.

Got to say i disagree with you. I think the fact there is such a massive investment into sport in this country, it can't do anything but increase peoples participation levels. Obviously a slight decline after the olympic hoo-har shas gone will happen. But thats inevitable.

I think in the short term it probably will, in a similar way to how every year when Wimbledon comes round, people start to play tennis more and membership of tennis centres increases. However, this is usually a short term thing due mainly to willpower. I think initially people will be awestruck and aim to be far more active, however for most people the novelty will wear off very quickly and participation levels in activities will inevitably drop. Its nice to think that people might be inspired in the first place though, as this on its own is no bad thing.