(Quebec) A study that concludes that the cardiovascular physical condition of Quebec children and adolescents has suffered a significant deterioration since the 1980s alarms the Legault government, which is banking on active transportation, extracurricular activities, sports infrastructure and a boost parents to reverse this trend.
“It’s worrying and alarming,” said Isabelle Charest, Minister responsible for Sports, Recreation and the Outdoors, in an interview.
In the morning, The Press revealed that a Quebec study concluded that “an alarming decline in cardiovascular fitness and functional capacity in a population of children and adolescents since the 1980s”. A change of direction is needed to prevent the breathlessness of young Quebecers from turning into an “epidemic of cardiometabolic diseases”, warn the researchers.
Olympic medalist, nutritionist, mother, Mme Charest recognizes the immense challenge that lies before us. Making sport more accessible for children is “the basis of my involvement in politics”, she says.
She points out that the results of the study do not take into account the measures put in place by the CAQ government: the students were tested between 2014 and 2017 in 36 schools in Montreal, Quebec, Saguenay, Trois-Rivières, Laval and Sherbrooke. .
Mme Charest believes that the addition of an extra-curricular hour each day in all secondary schools in Quebec will have a definite effect on the health of young people: 80% of them have chosen to practice sports with this addition. of resource.
Sports infrastructure
Many experts, however, believe that young people should have more physical education lessons at school, but the minister retorts that with the shortage of teachers, it is easier to go through extracurriculars. “We can seek external resources to organize extracurricular activities. A sports club, a leisure club can come […] We don’t put pressure on our teaching ability, on the teachers we don’t have. It’s a way to quickly deploy a measure,” she said.
She also recalls that her party has promised to invest 1.5 billion over 10 years in sports infrastructure. “It is important to create infrastructure so that young people can be active,” she said. At the same time, Quebec has also set up “libraries” of sports equipment, where you can rent free items such as skates, tennis rackets, baseball gloves to learn about a sport.
“I’m not telling you that everything is acquired, that it’s done, and that in two years we will see that the curve is reversed and that everyone is more active. We fight in a world where social networks, and platforms are omnipresent, ”recognizes the Minister of Sport.
I have a daughter who is 13 years old. I have to push very very hard. This is also the role of parents. Spontaneously, she does not have the reflex to move. And we walk to go to school, and she cries all the way and then we walk again to go to school. It’s part of what we do to instill values and the desire to move in our children.
Isabelle Charest, Minister of Sport
She also responds to Pierre Lavoie, instigator of the Energy Cubes and co-founder of the Grand Défi Pierre Lavoie, who wants to “change sports culture” in Quebec. According to him, we must encourage young people who can walk or ride to school, we must prohibit schools from removing mounds of snow in their yards, we must stop specializing young athletes and return to the pleasure of sport.
Mme Charest believes that this culture change is underway. “The opportunities to gather in a gang and go play outside, parents also have a role to play in it,” she underlines.
To go to school, it is better to walk
And for sports culture, she wants to support coaches and volunteers to train them. “In culture change, there is a lot to do. Some parents are very performance-oriented. […] They find themselves in a sporting context, they will yell at a referee, yell at a young person, yell at a coach because he put someone they consider less good in the last minute of the game, and in the end they will lose. a game and won’t go to the next round,” she laments.
The Olympic medalist reminds them that “in the journey of an athlete, it is not the victory that is important, it is the process”.
It is also counting on the return of active transportation for schoolchildren. Rather than taking mom or dad’s car, it’s better to walk or drive. “I believe in active transportation at 100,000 an hour. There came a time when parents no longer sent their children on bicycles or on foot to school because it was too dangerous. I think that trend is being reversed more and more,” she says.
However, she recognizes that there are challenges, in particular the construction of more cycle paths for example.