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Social factors make a difference to kids' physical activity Eight-year-old Helen, Glenda's youngest child, loves to play outside in winter in her front yard. |
Like Glenda, parents' attitudes affect how active their sons and daughters are. According to Canada's 2006 report card on physical activity for children and youth, less than one-third of parents are aware of the daily activity guidelines for children and youth.
"For kids and adults, not being active enough can have serious, negative results over the course of a lifetime." |
Moms and dads may be scared to let their kids play outside or at recreation facilities because they are worried about injuries, bullying or even abductions. In the 2006 report, almost 80% of parents identified their children's safety as a key concern.
Various groups have developed guidelines for playground safety to reduce the risk of injuries during play.
The Canadian Parks and Recreation Association (CPRA) has developed Making All Recreation Safe, a toolkit that will help communities put in place strategies to prevent abuse and harassment to make sport and recreation safer.
As well, many communities have developed neighbourhood safety programs to help residents feel safer.
Sharon Jollimore, director of National Initiatives and Alliances at CPRA, says a family's economic situation can influence kids' access to physical activity opportunities.
"You can provide a low-income family with swimming passes, but if they don't have the transportation to get there, or they don't have the bathing suits to put on, it's not necessarily going to benefit them."
Sharon adds that some facilities require people to prove they can't pay before providing a subsidy. "Some families would be too proud to ask for help."
Many communities are developing programs to make physical activities available to everyone. One example is, Everybody Gets to Play, an initiative that helps communities to find new ways to help low-income families participate in recreation programs.
Girls aren't as active as boys Natalie, 12, likes to kick the soccer ball around during recess. A lot of the time she ends up playing soccer with the boys because the girls her age aren't generally active during the break. Boys are more active than girls (requires PDF reader).
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To encourage kids to be active, urban planners need to consider the locations of green spaces and bus routes and how neighbourhoods connect to each other.
Community design can either encourage or limit physical activity.
For example:
Katherine and her five-year-old daughter, Kira, visited Edmonton from northern Alberta to test out some wheelchair accessible playgrounds.
Kira has spina bifida, a birth defect where the spine does not develop properly. She can't use the play areas in her own community because they aren't wheelchair accessible.
"The little girl was thrilled with the designed play spaces in Edmonton", said Kim Sanderson, of the Community Services department for the City of Edmonton.
Katherine said the play spaces gave Kira more confidence and helped her learn physical skills she normally doesn't get to practice.
"You have no idea what this means to me as a parent," she said.
Parents can advocate for accessible playgrounds in their neighbourhood. They can also let activity program leaders know if their child has a disability and needs support in being active.
Community success story: Make the program times match the bus schedule! A town on the Sunshine Coast in BC realized attendance was down at its recreation centre. The staff knew that many people in the community had trouble getting to the centre to take the programs. They simply changed the start times of different programs to fit the bus schedule. Attendance rose. "It was as simple as that, and it was significant enough to allow adults and kids to participate because otherwise they couldn't get there on time," said Sharon Jollimore of CPRA. "People can look at their own communities and discover what the obstacles are that keep kids and other people from enjoying recreation." |
Specific by-laws or legislation can affect whether children are active or not. By-laws in some communities discourage certain types of physical activity. For example, bans on street hockey or other road games may reduce active opportunities that are free and close to home. At the same time, we need to ensure that play areas for children are in environments that will reduce their risk of injury.
Many, but not all provinces have legislated daily physical activity in schools. In Ontario, for example, all kids from Kindergarten to Grade 8 now do 20 minutes of physical activity every day.
Some schools go a step further and have a daily physical education program, planned and taught by experts, as part of the school curriculum. In Canada, the amount of physical education in schools depends on the individual province, school board and school.
There are many ways individuals, communities, and governments can increase kids' activity levels.
When we create opportunities for activity at home and in the community, and encourage active ways to get from one place to another, we help children get the physical activity they need for healthy growth and development.
* Names of the families and children in this article have been changed.
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Last updated: 2008-04-22 | ![]() |
Important Notices |