This is the 10th year the report card has revealed low grades for Canadian children and youth, but it is also the first year Active Healthy Kids Canada has put the marks in a global perspective. In an effort to determine what works and what doesn’t, the report compared the results of 14 different countries from around the world.
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The report also attributes Canada’s low grade to the “culture of convenience.”
A survey shows that 62 per cent of parents said their kids ages 5-11 are always driven to and from school, whether by car, bus, or other forms of non-active transportation. This same age group will spend an average of 7.6 hours sedentary.
While Canada does place well in organized sport participation, it isn’t enough to offset the hours of sitting children do at home and at school. Less children are walking, biking, or running to school, and instead just go from one sedentary environment to the next.
My kids don't walk to school. They run. Both ways. They usually stay at least a half hour to play afterwards. Then they go home, eat and them go to soccer. They have a little video game time as well, but they're moving every day.
My kids don't walk to school. They run. Both ways. They usually stay at least a half hour to play afterwards. Then they go home, eat and them go to soccer. They have a little video game time as well, but they're moving every day.
Sadly, I have a picture of you in my mind driving behind them in a golf cart yell to hurry up. I have no idea why.
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I'm assuming part of this is the paranoia that every kid will be abducted/assaulted if they go anywhere on their own now. Are all neighborhoods that unsafe now?
I'm assuming part of this is the paranoia that every kid will be abducted/assaulted if they go anywhere on their own now. Are all neighborhoods that unsafe now?
No they aren't.
I listened to a show a few years ago on CBC radio, in short, the researcher was saying that abductions and child related crimes were not increasing, rather the knowledge of them was increasing. There was a time when our news did not cover an abduction in Sydney or Atlanta.
My kids have the run of the neighbourhood, within set boundaries (which mainly is to reduce the distance I have to go to find them).
I'm not sure they value the right things when looking at the grades. To me it seems they over-ephasize active transportation when a better metric might just be minutes of physical activity per day. Wether the kid is in the backyard playing after being picked up from school or bking home its the total mintutes of activity.
Its also ignores intensity. Using the example of oragnized sprots like hockey and soccer you go out for an intense shift and then rest then do another intense shift. This studies states that is only partially active because it isn't continuous moderate activity. This is in direct contriditction with studies that show that bouts of high intensity activity can improve health in the same manner as constant moderate activity.
The underlying information is good though. And canada has the facilities in place to have active play. (Though a pile of dirt is all you really need) So its really up to the parents to get kids outside. The big thing preventing this is fear.
Do they consider that it is winter for 8-10 months and going outside can be terrible for much of it?
When I grew up in the Okanagan, I was more active in the winter than the summer! It's way more fun to explore random places when there aren't bushes and cactuses to run into all the time. (Sitting on a beach in 30+ degree weather was never as intensive anyway)
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Unless it's 20 below, my kids are still on the playground after school. Dress them correctly.
They will play in just about any temperature and it can be challenging to get them to dress warm enough as they are always wanting to layer down. Very rarely will you hear a kid complain about the weather. Lots of time to do that when they grow up
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some kids are just not sports oriented - my daughter would rather read a book than go for a bike; however, wheprompted, she will get on her bike with us. my son almost always wants to be doing something, he will go and shoot baskets in the morning for two minutes while he is waiting for the rest of us.
other times parents make it too easy for thier kids - for example (this is one of my pet peeves) go to any hockey rink, how many parents do you see carry the bags for kids that are 10 yrs of age and older......
i think it is safe to say that back in our day, we played outside, and we lived to tell about it - now when it is -15 we deem it too cold to be outside despite the fact we have gortex and other fancy materials to keep us warm and dry......
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Do they consider that it is winter for 8-10 months and going outside can be terrible for much of it?
Unless it hit like minus 20 we were tossed outside for a good hour or two first of all because we were getting on our parents nerves, and second of all because as my mom famously said, you'll warm up if you keep moving, and my dad would famously said shovel the damn sidewalk.
the other thing I guess that made it easy, back then, there just wasn't much on T.V. and usually the food stuff was on after dinner, and we didn't have much in the way of video games unless you were a pong addict or a tank war addict.
This winter wasn't overly cold except for maybe a month, other then that it was pretty seasonal, and that's the way its been for a while now.
I get it, with parents now days, the T.V. and the internet are the best brain sucking baby sitters out there when they're tired at the end of the day, and I get that parents have bought into the hype of a murdering pedophile around every corner, but if we let our kids get fat they're slower and easier to catch. We need to be building a generation of high speed, a$$ kickers instead.
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Everything to do with Kids will always be on the parents.
because television, videogames, computers, phones and schools have no effect on their behavioral patterns whatsoever. Yup, it's the parents dictating 100% of their input and advertisements designed to manipulate children are benign.
Unless it's 20 below, my kids are still on the playground after school. Dress them correctly.
Oh I agree. But I know a lot of parents that are very over-concerned about the temperature.
As far as walking to school, I used to when the school as close enough, but I know many parents who drive their kids an insane amount of distance (like a couple kms) to school for concerns usually revolving around weather or the threat of being kidnapped. My parents used to let us run around our neighborhood at will unsupervised until dusk. I just don't see stuff like that happening anymore. And I'm only 25 so this was 10-15 years ago (man what the hell!?).
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Canadian Kids Get a D in Active Living
