Canadian kids get 'D' letter grade for overall physical activity in report card

Canadians are dropping the ball when it comes to ensuring their kids are getting enough exercise.

A new report card issued by the non-profit organization ParticipACTION is giving kids across the country a “D” letter grade for overall physical activity.

That’s a decline from the last survey done in 2020, which gave Canadians a D+.

Only an average of 28 per cent of young people are meeting the physical activity recommendations within the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Children and Youth.

For kids aged five to 17, that’s an accumulation of at least 60 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous physical activity.

The 2022 Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth attributes much of the decline to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“When the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, there was a sudden and drastic shift in the ways kids could access physical activity opportunities,” reads the report.

Activities like playing with friends, in-person physical education classes, sport competitions and recreation programming were all stalled by public health measures.

The number of youth playing organized sports decreased in 2022 to just 57 per cent.

Seventy-three per cent of local sports organizations temporarily closed due to COVID- 19.

One out of five of these organizations may not recover without emergency support according to the survey.

TOO MUCH SCREEN TIME

COVID-19 also increased sedentary screen use, the report suggests.

Only 18 per cent of kids meet the Canadian 24-Hour Movement recommendations of no more than two hours per day of recreational screen time.

“The pivot to virtual learning and calls to stay at home transformed kids' screens from an indulgence into a necessity for education and a default for leisure-time behaviour creating even greater concerns for the many ways that screen time adversely impacts healthy movement behaviours and overall well-being,” reads the report.

As a result, Canadians dropped from a D+ to a F.

SIGNS OF IMPROVEMENT

While the country’s grade for overall physical activity decreased, there were signs of improvement in other categories.

Active play, which is non-organized or unstructured leisure activities, increased from a failing grade to a D-.

“A remarkable feat considering the strain many families experienced during the peak of the pandemic,” states the report.

Active transportation to get to and from places increased from D- to a C-.

Forty-six per cent of parents indicated through the report that their children either solely commute actively to school or commute partially in an active way.

The report card makes a number of recommendations for improving Canadians grades in all categories.

Those include better public messaging about the importance of exercise, more studies into Canadians’ exercise habits, and exposing children to a variety of different sports, or "sport sampling," as opposed to early sport specialization.