Kids Average 40 Hours a Week in Front of TV, Computer
By Andrea Gordon
Kids spend an average of 40 hours a week sitting in front of screens, and many of those inactive hours are right after school, warns the annual report card from Active Healthy Kids Canada.
Children and youth spend the equivalent of a full work week on videogames, television and Facebook, says the 2011 report, released Tuesday. For the fifth straight year, it awards a failing grade for physical activity and screen time.
It stresses that while the after-school window provides an ideal time for recreational sports or running around in schoolyards and parks, kids spend only about 14 minutes of the three hours between the school bell and dinner actually moving their bodies.
“These alarming numbers equate to a very sedentary child,” says Mark Tremblay, chief scientific officer with Active Healthy Kids.
“What we’re trying to push is (the creation of) increased opportunities for kids to be more active after school, and particularly outside, away from screens and where they are less likely to eat.”
The widely-watched annual report card, introduced in 2005, shows little improvement from the bad news of previous years, which have highlighted the declining levels of daily movement and the need for policies to offset the trend.
It notes only 9 per cent of boys and 4 per cent of girls meet Health Canada’s recommended minimum of one hour a day of moderate-to-vigorous exercise. On a more encouraging note, 44 per cent of kids meet the one-hour guideline three times a week and four out of five get half an hour of exercise, but new habits and programs are needed to bump that to healthier levels.
The report card issued a D for active transportation, with only a quarter of kids walking or cycling to school, and a D-plus for family physical activity.
Tremblay says until there is leadership from governments aimed at making exercise a priority, there isn’t much chance of improving the dismal assessment.
“Grades are pretty much the same as last year and until we see some major (policy) changes, they will remain where they are,” he said in an interview.
Many advocates have called for a national plan to promote physical activity and improve health that would include policies, funding and public education. In the United States, measures spearheaded by First Lady Michelle Obama to fight childhood obesity and increase physical activity have raised the profile of the issue and been followed by $1 billion in funding.
In contrast, Ottawa spends less than $10 million a year on promotion and programs, with real dollars per capita half of what they were in 1986, says Tremblay.
The report card’s findings are in keeping with research released earlier this year based on the Canadian Health Measures Survey. The survey used accelerometers to track movements of 4,500 children and found they were inactive for 62 per cent of their waking hours, with only 7 per cent getting the recommended amount of daily exercise.
While the after-school period is the most logical time for kids to get off the couch, supervised and affordable programs are limited in communities like Toronto.
According to the Active Healthy Kids report card, 72 per cent of parents say their kids don’t have access to after-school programs that encourage physical activity.
The shortage exists even though some research has found kids would actually prefer to be active. For example, a recent study by the Canadian Assessment of Physical Literacy asked 600 Ontario students in Grades 4 to 6 what they would prefer to do after school.
Three-quarters said ideally they would choose something that involves moving around, such as pickup sports or dog-walking. Screen time was at the bottom of the list.
Originally Published on thestar.com Tuesday April 26, 2010
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