Canadian kids get poor grade in fitness, report says

A report card on physical activity levels for Canadian children and youth gives kids a D when it comes to fitness.

The report relies on data from a number of provincial and national surveys and reports.

The grade has been D since 2005, the first year the report was released. However, this year, it finds more and more pre-school aged children are inactive, spending more time in front of TV and reporting higher levels of obesity.

Canada's Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth for 2008, published by the charitable group Active Healthy Kids Canada, finds that 90 per cent of Canadian children and youth are still failing to meet the guidelines outlined in Canada's Physical Activity Guides for Children and Youth. The guidelines recommend 60 to 90 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per day on most days of the week.

The report finds one of the main culprits of inadequate fitness is increased screen time, with kids spending four to six hours daily in front of a TV, either watching shows or playing video games.

High screen times are now being observed in preschool-aged children, with one report indicating close to two hours per day per child.

Pediatric associations have recommended no more than one hour a day for preschoolers and two hours a day for school-aged children and youths.

"While we know that excessive screen time is a problem in school-aged children and youth, new data this year indicates that this is a problem in preschool-aged children as well," reads the report.

"This finding should be alarming as it shows how early our children are being programmed into a lifestyle of dependence on electronic devices that are often associated with sedentary behaviour," reads the report.

Children who spend excessive amounts of time in front of a screen are more likely to be obese, have low fitness levels and be less likely to participate in physical activity, the report says.

But the report finds that it is during the teen years where activity levels really drop off. In the New Brunswick Student Wellness Survey, more students in Grades 6 to 8 (58 per cent) said they were active when compared with students in Grades 9 to12 (47 per cent).

There are also activity differences between the sexes. Girls are less active than boys. In the national Tell Them From Me Survey, 50 per cent of boys and only 36 per cent of girls reported meeting a target of 90 minutes of physical activity on most days of the week. 

Consequences of inactivity

The report finds that 26 per cent of Canadian children and youth are overweight or obese, and that the prevalence of obesity increases with a child's age. In children aged two to five, 21.5 per cent are overweight or obese, while 25.8 per cent of kids aged six to 11 years and 29.2 per cent of youth aged 12 to17 are overweight or obese.

The 2006 Canadian Clinical Practice Guidelines on the Management and Prevention of Obesity in Adults and Children stated that "sweeping prevention and intervention strategies are required to slow, and hopefully reverse, the alarming increase in obesity prevalence in Canada and globally."

Provincially, there are significant differences in obesity levels in children. While Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Manitoba have the highest rates of childhood obesity, Alberta and Quebec have the lowest.

Obesity levels among preschool-aged children are also growing. Young kids between the ages of two and five have obesity rates only slightly below older kids. In a recent Newfoundland study, of 4,161 babies born in 1997 in the province, 15.6 per cent were overweight or obese by ages three to five.