Physical Activity/Inactivity for Children and Youth - Canada

The Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute's 'Canadian Physical Activity Levels Among Youth (CANPLAY) Study' measures physical activity levels of children and youth objectively, using pedomoters to measure daily steps. We now have three consecutive years of this data showing:

• the percentage of children and youth meeting Canada's physical activity guidelines of 90 minutes of physical activity a day is very low - but has increased from 9% in 2005/2006 to 13% in 2007/2008
• the mean number of steps accumulated per day from 2005 to 2008 for Canadian children and youth has increased somewhat - from approximately 11,300 to approximately 12,000.

Using this data, the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Ministers responsible for Sport, Physical Activity and Recreation in May 2008 set the first ever national physical activity targets for children and youth aged 5-19 years of age:

• by 2015, to increase by seven percentage points the proportion of children and youth who participate in 90 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity over and above activities of daily living; and
• by 2015, to increase from 11,500 steps to 14,500 steps per day the average number of steps taken by all children and youth, which is equivalent to an increse of 30 minutes of physical activity per day.

Additional insight:

• boys take more daily steps than girls (about 1,200 more daily steps) - both genders experiencing increases over the three years
• almost twice as many boys as girls met the 16,500 step CPAG criterion in year 3 of the study
• the proportion of young people meeting this criterion generally decreases in older age groups - with almost twice as many 5-10 year olds meeting the CPAG criterionb and 15-19 year olds.

Source: http://www.activehealthykids.ca/ReportCard/PhysicalActivityandInactivity.aspx
http://www.cflri.ca/eng/programs/canplay/documents/CANPLAY_2008_b1.pdf