A new study suggests that parents may be overestimating the amount of exercise their kids are getting — a fact that could be making them fatter.
Statistics Canada released a new report Wednesday on physical activity and sleep in children based on the Canadian Health Measures Survey — a massive study that tested the blood, urine and body traits of thousands of Canadians.
Previous rounds of the survey relied on self-reported estimates of physical fitness, which are often inaccurate, said Rachel Colley, lead author on the report. For this study, they strapped accelerometers to 878 children aged six to 11 to track the actual amount of moderate-to-vigorous intensity (sweat-inducing) activity they got each day compared to what their parents thought they were getting.
Colley and her team found that parents overestimated the amount of sweat-inducing activity their kids got each day by about 40 minutes, and underestimated the amount of time they spent sitting around by about 5.1 hours.
Glenn Wilson, St. Albert phys-ed teacher and member of the St. Albert Physical Education Council, said he wasn't surprised by the study's results. "We have been moving towards this eventuality for decades."
Less fit than thought
The Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology recommends that children aged five to 11 get at least 60 minutes of sweat-inducing activity per day and spend less than two hours a day in front of a TV or computer in order to stay healthy.
Parents in the Stats Canada study thought that their kids got about 105 minutes of exercise a day, Colley said, but the accelerometers showed they were actually getting just 63 — barely above the minimum. Conversely, parents thought their kids spent just 2.5 hours a day sitting still, while it was closer to 7.6 — far above the recommended maximum.
This big gap isn't a total surprise, Colley said, as it's partially caused by the way we measure activity.
"When a kid is at a 60-minute soccer practice, for how much of that 60 minutes are they actually moving?"
The accelerometers record just those moments of actual motion, so they don't count the time kids spend standing still or on the bench.
Parents don't watch their kids 24 hours a day, Colley continued, so most of their estimates are guesswork. They also tend to want to believe their kids are active, which could bias their perceptions.
The gap is a consequence of our instant-gratification world, Wilson said — a world where parents expect their kids to be hockey stars just because they attend practice.
"Parents have become increasingly distracted by the scheduling of children's activities instead of focusing on the activity itself."
Pro athletes became pros because they played all the time, he pointed out, not just twice a week at practice.
How to get fit
Physical activity has many benefits, the report found, and can reduce your risk of cancer, diabetes, obesity and heart disease. The report found that one additional hour of sweat-inducing activity was associated with a 1.2 kilograms per metre squared drop in body-mass index and a 3.2 centimetre reduction in waist circumference.
The key thing about the physical activity guidelines is that they're every day, Colley said. Spreading activity throughout the week instead of lumping it into a few practices makes it more likely that your kids will get the exercise they need.
Being active doesn't necessarily mean being athletic, Wilson said. "Kids just need to play!" Parents need to encourage kids to get outdoors and play tag and kick-the-can, he said, while schools need to teach kids skills instead of sports so they can use them for spontaneous games.
"If P.E. class was a place where kids were encouraged to play and learn instead of [focusing on] how they dressed or what sports skills they brought to the table," he said, "then we would have taken a quantum leap towards promoting active lifestyles."
The study is available at www.statcan.ca in the April 18 issue of The Daily.
