Children's Physical Activity Watchdog Gives Canada a Big F!

Active Healthy Kids Canada, a group which studies the activity level of children in Canada, and then gives the nation an overall letter grade, continued the trend set last year by giving Canada a big fat capital F

 

This isn't meant to be taken lightly as an arbitrary letter grade, or as some form of binary as either "good / bad". It's actually the worst mark possible. The group's complete methodology and grading system can be checked out on their site, and believe me: we didn't do very well. 

I found a pie chart on their site, which illustrates (approximately) how a Canadian child's day is broken up. Moderate-to-Vigorous activity includes sports, running and. playing games outdoors with friends. Light activity would be walking, going to the park or some other activity that might naturally make up part of one's day. Sedentary habits (I say habits because we can't really call it activity) include, sitting down in class, watching TV at home or browsing the web. 

As you can see, the sedentary portion of a child's day is far greater than any of the active slices of the pie. Of course, it's not entirely likely that the moderate to vigorous category would take up most of one's day, but 8% isn't very much at all. That's less than an hour. I suppose I could get into how things were different when I was young but I hardly have the right to since my current adult lifestyle is starting to look quite a bit like the pie chart.

Though, kids are meant to be out and about and aren't really supposed to spend their days like adults. We have 8 hour day desk jobs, and offices to go to. People aren't supposed to become exhausted couch potatoes so early in life.

The study underlines the growing trend of "leisure first, activity second" which seems to dominate the way people both relax and have fun. What can we do to reverse it?

To start: parents need to be aware of what they can do to help change their children's lifestyles.

Children need to know that they can have just as much fun outside playing sports as they can indoors, on the couch playing video games. Show them the wonders of the great outdoors, and bring them to a park, a walk in the woods, or pack up and head out for a day hike. Exercise and physical activity doesn't have to be a chore, it can be just as much, if not more, fun than holding a controller and staring at a television.