TORONTO — With Canadian children still failing to meet key physical activity targets, a new report is stressing the benefits of outdoor play and urging adults to give kids more freedom.
After a decade under the banner of Active Healthy Kids Canada, ParticipAction is spearheading the annual Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth.
The latest findings, released Tuesday, paint a dire picture with Canadian kids assigned a D-minus for overall physical activity.
The report card found that 70 per cent of three-to-four-year-olds met early years guidelines of at least 180 minutes of daily physical activity at any intensity.
Older children fared much worse. Only seven per cent of five- to 11-year-olds and five per cent of 12- to 17-year-olds met recommended guidelines of 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity daily. Walking quickly, skating and biking are examples of moderate activities, while running, basketball and soccer are considered vigorous activities.
In a first for the report card, ParticipAction teamed with a leading research group and a dozen other organizations to develop a position statement advocating for active outdoor play.
The report addressed the "protection paradox" which may be stifling kids' ability to be more active and resilient by keeping them indoors.
Research highlighted the benefits of outdoor play in significantly boosting activity levels.
Another study found Grade 5 and 6 students who were often or always allowed to go out and explore unsupervised were 20 per cent more active than kids who were constantly supervised.
"We need to recognize the difference between danger and risk. And we need to value long-term health and fun as much as we value safety," the position statement reads.
"We're certainly not suggesting that we expose kids to dangerous situations. But I think our society and our environments have gone (to) the extreme," said Elio Antunes, president and CEO of ParticipAction.
"Because we fear kids being alone playing outside, or we fear them scraping a knee, we constantly supervise kids (and) keep them indoors. And we know that kids indoors are less active and have higher levels of sedentary behaviour."
The report outlines several recommendations for parents, educators, health professionals and governments among others to help promote outdoor play.
Antunes said parents should ensure kids are streetproofed and provided with some limits while encouraged to explore outdoors. But they aren't the only adults who should shoulder the responsibility.
"A lot of schools have banned ball playing during recess or running for fear of injuries because kids scrape a knee. ... So schools have a real role to play in encouraging kids to go outside and play — not creating policies that inhibit that," said Antunes.
While his children are home-schooled, Bryan Black's two eldest kids make weekly visits to Ottawa Forest and Nature School for an education in the outdoors.
Black said it's been beneficial for his seven-year-old daughter and five-year-old son to engage in hands-on activity in nature, from learning about trees and tadpoles to identifying animal tracks during the winter.
"That's part of the reason that we withdrew from the regular school system is there's not enough regular outdoor play," he said. "It's very structured at the school system where they can't just go and explore and be out in the outdoors as kids we used to do.
"It's not like it used to be."
Whether their kids are exploring the forested area at the family cottage or heading to the neighbourhood park in the city, Black said they make an effort to ensure their kids are outdoors regularly.
In addition to improved bone health and reduced risk of cardiovascular diseases, there are added cognitive and psychosocial benefits to being in nature, noted Mark Tremblay, the report card's chief scientific officer.
"You need to make decisions. You explore. There's more creativity. You're not being driven by a digital screen. You're actually chasing a frog or climbing a tree or you're exploring in the forest or you're inventing a game in the park," said Tremblay, director of Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute.
"We've lost the calibration of what's associated with healthy childhood development and we need to recalibrate society."
SCHOOLYARD GAMES, SCAVENGER HUNTS AMONG WAYS TO ENGAGE KIDS IN OUTDOOR PLAY
TORONTO — Engaging kids in active outdoor play is a key focus of the new ParticipAction Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth.
The report includes a position statement featuring several recommendations for getting kids out of the house and moving, like encouraging them to embrace the outdoors, regardless of the weather conditions.
Physical activity experts share three ways to get kids involved in active outdoor play.
1. JOIN THEM
"I certainly acknowledge that parents have a lot on their plates and that's not always possible. But if we're able to shift a few of their priorities and recognize how important it is for us to be playing with our kids," said Shawna Babcock, executive director of charitable organization KidActive.
"Then we're able to populate our parks and populate our sidewalks and our streets for outdoor active play so that we have more children outside playing which, in turn, makes it safer. And it becomes more visible and it provides parents with the confidence that it is a really safe and a really positive thing for their children."
2. EMBRACE SIMPLE ACTIVITIES AND SCHOOLYARD GAMES
"We go back and recognize how valuable those traditional games were, even if it was kick the can or hide-and-seek or just pickup games on street corners and cul-de-sacs," said Babcock.
Her organization has been working across Ontario on a project called Healthy Children Healthy Spaces which brings together community members to help rejuvenate unused spaces.
"I think fostering that creativity when they're making up their own games and really exploring their own communities — that's when physical activity and really positive social engagement starts to thrive between kids, and also between parents and kids.
"Even a simple walk in the community really generates a lot of dialogue between parents and kids and even between peers. ... I think the simpler the activity, the better."
3. DEVELOP A SCAVENGER HUNT
Mark Tremblay, chief scientific officer of the ParticipAction report card, said scavenger hunts are a great way to not only educate kids but get them moving.
"One day, it could be a commercial sort of thing. 'We want you to go to this store, this store, this store and just pick up a business card from them,'" said Tremblay, director of Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute.
"But you could also do it naturally. So 'We want you to get a maple leaf, we want you to get a pine cone, we want you to get a number of different things like that.' You could do it in a whole bunch of different thematic ways.
"There's a little bit of learning and yes, they need to navigate and they need to find their way home and so on. So I think things like that might be a way for the parents to sort of dip their toe in the 'let my kid roam a little further pond.'"
