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Study sounds weight alarm

Young Canadians are heavier, weaker, and less fit than their counterparts of 20 years ago, finds a new study, and scholars say we'll need a major change in our approach to exercise to head off a wave of obesity.

Young Canadians are heavier, weaker, and less fit than their counterparts of 20 years ago, finds a new study, and scholars say we'll need a major change in our approach to exercise to head off a wave of obesity.

Statistics Canada published the results of the Canadian Health Measures Survey. The survey of about 5,600 residents is the most comprehensive look yet at physical fitness.

The study found that, in almost every way measurable, people today were significantly less fit than those in 1981. Today's average 12-year-old boy is 6.4 kilograms heavier, six centimetres wider at the hips and five kilograms weaker (in terms of grip strength) than his 1981 counterpart. Likewise, the average 20- to 39-year-old woman today was as fit as a 40-year-old from 1981.

These trends have already led to higher levels of cardiovascular and bone disease, says Mark Tremblay, director of healthy active living and obesity research at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario and the study's lead author, and will cause a significant jump in health care costs if not reversed. "It does not forecast a pretty future."

Canada's not fit

The study involved about 2,000 children aged six to 19 and about 3,100 adults aged 20 to 69. Researchers ran each through basic fitness tests such as touching toes and running up stairs and measured physical traits such as mass and blood pressure. The results were then compared to those of Canada's last major fitness study, which happened in 1981.

The results show a dramatic drop in fitness levels. About 60 per cent of today's children ranked "fair/needs improvement" on the toe-touch test, for example, compared to about 40 per cent in 1981. Teens aged 15 to 19 today were more than three times as likely to have a waist size that put them at an increased or high risk of health problems while 20- to 39-year-olds were more than four times as likely.

The study found that the average 20- to 39-year-old was now clinically obese, meaning they had a body-mass index over 30. If this is not changed, about half of Canada's over-40 population will be obese by 2035.

Lifestyle problem

Notably, the study found the greatest difference in fitness levels in people under 39 — older people were less fit, but closer to levels measured in 1981.

This is due to trends that started in the 1980s, says Tremblay. "The 20- to 39-year-olds now are the first generation that grew up with Space Invaders, Pac-Man and the onset of the video game era," he says, as well as fast food and personal computers. "You're seeing less activity at recess by kids and more cocooning inside of houses."

Federal fitness spending has also fallen to half the levels seen in 1986. The federal government needs to take this problem seriously, Tremblay says. "These data are very strong. They are not wrong. They forecast a very bad situation."

He called for a re-investment in outdoor play and programs such as ParticipACTION.

We need to do the same to obesity as we did to smoking, says Glenn Wilson, physical education teacher at Leo Nickerson Elementary and past provincial representative for Physical and Health Education Canada — tax it. "The convenient lifestyle is killing us."

Canada needs to tax fast food and other unhealthy products if it wants to head off this wave of obesity.

Schools also have to teach students physical skills instead of sports, he says. If you teach hand-eye coordination, endurance and flexibility, he argues, kids will be more likely to try basketball, hockey and other sports later on.

Wilson is working with the province to make school gym courses more appealing to kids. "Hopefully, if I do my job well enough, then the kids that leave Leo Nickerson will not be those obese kids."


Kevin Ma

About the Author: Kevin Ma

Kevin Ma joined the St. Albert Gazette in 2006. He writes about Sturgeon County, education, the environment, agriculture, science and aboriginal affairs. He also contributes features, photographs and video.
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