Canadian Kids Get Failing Fitness Grade
Active Healthy Kids Canada report gives ‘F’ for 4th straight year
In its sixth annual report card, Active Healthy Kids Canada assigned an “F” for physical activity levels for the fourth consecutive year.
- Currently, 20% of boys aged 5-10 years and 15% of boys aged 11-14 years are meeting the guidelines, but only 5% of adolescent girls are getting enough activity.
- In grade 6, 55% of boys and 53% of girls participate in school sports.
- By grade 12, 41% of boys and 27% of girls participate in school sports.
Younger children especially a concern
“This is very disturbing because it sets kids on a trajectory that the evidence shows it’s not one that we would desire,” he said from Ottawa. “So young children that are overweight or obese or sedentary or inactive tend to follow those behaviour patterns later on in childhood and into adulthood, certainly much more so than kids that don’t demonstrate those behaviour patterns early on.”
- National data indicate that 15.2 per cent of two- to five-year-olds are overweight, and 6.3 per cent are obese.
‘We have a crisis in our country’
In addition to limiting screen time, parents need to take a leadership role in promoting activity, said Kelly Murumets, president and CEO of ParticipAction, citing examples like walking kids to school, cycling to the store or parking in the furthest possible spot in the parking lot.
Active Healthy Kids Canada calls the report card the most comprehensive annual assessment of all available information related to physical activity of children and youth in the country. The report card draws on hundreds of data sets and studies that were reviewed to assign the grades.
Active Healthy Kids Short Report:
www.activehealthykids.ca/ecms.ashx/2010ActiveHealthyKidsCanadaReportCard-shortform.pdf
Read more at CBC:
www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/04/27/physical-activity-children.html#ixzz0mJg80JKI
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