An unsurprising story – Canadian kids’ physical activity levels handed D- grade in new report – but with a surprising observation.
For the first time, Active Healthy Kids Canada is using its annual Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth to see how Canadians measure up to kids in 14 other countries.
Canadian children and youth were assigned a “D minus” grade for overall physical activity levels.
Canada trailed near the back of the international pack along with Australia, Ireland and the U.S. — who were also each assigned a D minus — while Scotland received an “F.”
Interesting that two of the more sport-obsessed cultures, Australia and Canada, are most vulnerable to the ‘culture of convenience’:
Despite the presence of established policies, places and programs designed to help kids get moving, the report pointed to what it described as a “culture of convenience” to account for why many Canadian kids aren’t more active.
“Our country values efficiency — doing more in less time — which may be at direct odds with promoting children’s health,” a portion of the short-form report reads.
And surprising that the problem is not a lack of ‘policies, places and programs.’ In other words, we have opportunity for activity designed into our communities – like this park in Perth:
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Kids just don’t use them.
A cause of this inactivity? No surprise:
Canada also trails behind the bulk of the global pack in the category of active transportation, assigned a “D,” with the report revealing 62 per cent of parents said their five- to 17-year-olds were always driven to and from school.
Gee, I wonder what might be a solution.
Instead of driving kids to schools why not have them running on the sidewalk while you follow them in the car…Problem of kids inactivity solved. Done & done…
I live very close to a high school — and I have to time my departure for work, lest I get caught in the epic daily gridlock which forms as ignorant parents drive their entitled teenagers to school. This, despite the fact that the school is within 300m of four bus routes. Frankly, I think the School Board should ban parents’ vehicles from approaching within 500m of the school (with passes for those who are mobility-challenged, of course). Every able-bodied kid should be able to walk a half km to school.
Well said. The nanny state is ever growing. See blog post on bike helmets, for example.
Even with good transportation alternatives, there’s a culture of protection which leads parents to swaddle their children into adulthood. Even in Canada, parents have had to explain to cops why their kids are outside playing by themselves, sometimes even had to explain to a judge.
It’s a problem that we’ll have to tackle from many sides. Hopefully seeing kids routinely walk to school could go a long way to changing perspectives.
Parents are told all sorts of lies that their children are in constant danger from abductors. Even though child abductions are extremely rare, a parent would only have to concern themselves with their child being abducted once every few thousand lifetimes, they’ve being made to think that they’re commonplace. Now we have it as a normal way to have kids go to school. Bizarre.
The news takes the unusual and highlights it while ignoring the commonplace leaving us, if that’s our only source of information of the world, to believe that the unusual is commonplace.
I certainly wouldn’t want to hang out in that overgrown traffic circle, either, even if I was 10 years old again. We need to locate and design such places and, more particularly, the streets in the ‘hood to actually encourage “play”, by all age groups.
My thoughts too.
I doubt that the middle of the traffic circle is intended to be a play space – it would also be dangerousto retrieve wayward balls in any direction.
Not that all traffic circles are unfriendly. Queen’s Park Savannah, in Port-of-Spain, is the world’s largest roundabout and contains playing fields.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Park_Savannah
http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/04/7d/03/92/queen-s-park-savannah.jpg
I can only speak about my kids, but it’s hard for them to be active in the city. We live in a MtPleasant condo. I generally walk them to school, which is only six blocks. Sometimes my 8 year-old will go by herself. This past weekend, I did the Grouse Grind with her. And, on weekends, we walk a lot, like to downtown.
But, The problem is that I have to be the one that initiates/organizes her outside activity. We don’t have a yard or anything. So, anything outdoor is structured through us as parents. There’s no free-range outdoor play going on.
For those who grew up in a house like I did, it’s very different than growing up in a condo. My sister and I would have friends over and we’d all go down to the basement and bang around or even shoot pucks. Or, we’d play catch and have waterfights out in the yard. We had a ton of junk like balls, sticks, bats, nets, skiis, etc.
In a condo, we don’t have that space for any of that. But, we don’t even have the luxury of making noise. I’m constantly telling my kids to be quiet to not bother the neighbours. So, they just sit and read or play videogames.
These are really good points. As much as i am in favour of density, these are lifestyle choices to consider about the density argument. I always think about the millions of kids raised over the years in NYC that lived in Brownstones and tenements that played stick ball in the streets and used the well purposed and positioned pocket parks through the dense city. How did they turn out? I think the winter weather in Vancouver is a big issue for kids, I know growing up that my mom tried everything to keep us from being bored on those long rainy dark days, board games, lots of Lego, costumes and dress-up, anything but TV. Are these spaces available for kids in apartments these days?
And this is the part of condo living that really gets to me.. it’s not great for children. I so wish all those multi family co ops built in the 60s and 70s weren’t disappearing. I had so much freedom as a child. We truly didn’t know how good we had it, did we? If it’s any consolation, a friend of mine who moved to Kamloops laments that he can’t get his kids to want to bike or wander around their very safe neighborhood. They’d rather play video games. I had both options though, and did both, but I think the difference is his kids have more structured activity than I ever did, so I had more free time. If you feel like your kids need some time to run around and yell and use their imaginations Kirk, my friend Claire teaches a great drama class called dramagination that does just that.
How does a park encircled by a street differ from a rectangular park also bordered entirely by streets? It doesn’t. The street looks quiet enough to be virtually non-existent to someone in the park. Being curved it’s possible the park is big enough for grade school cricket matches and there appears to be little to no chance of having to deal with a car should someone hit the ball over the boundary.
In contrast Vancouver has many well used parks bordered by busy arterial roads that require signalized crosswalks.
My kids (7 & 9) play outside by themselves as much as we can encourage them to do. I’m often frustrated when all they want to do is sit inside and watch a movie/TV/computer game. When the weather gets nice they often disappear on foot/scooter/bike and my wife and I usually have only a vague idea of where they might be. Getting them home for supper often involves phone calls to other parents and searching dozens of front and back yards in hope of finding them. I recently purchased a bike (first one in over 20 years) so now I can search their usual play zone more quickly, but in the last year that zone has expanded from 3 blocks to 8. By next year I think I’ll have to equip the older one with a cell phone!
We have always walked the kids to school and will continue to do that until they’re old enough to get there by themselves.
I think my kids have a good outlook because their mom doesn’t drive and I take the bus to work. We live near shopping so the car is for visiting relatives, recreation and Costco.