While you’re finishing up the leftover holiday pie-turkey-atacas, here’s some news that’s not easy to digest: young Quebecers are less and less in shape, and more at risk of developing health problems. majors.
The conclusions of a recent study on the cardiovascular capacity of young Quebecers are alarming: at age 17, the majority of boys (58%) and girls (70%) have a cardiovascular capacity below the threshold necessary to minimize the risk of have major health problems. Roughly speaking, their cardiovascular capacity has decreased by about 30% since 1982.
As a society, we are more sedentary, eat less well, play less sport than four decades ago. No wonder we are less healthy.
Solving this problem – which will translate into millions or billions of dollars in additional costs for our health care system – is not easy.
There is no miracle solution. There are several solutions, which must be added together.
The first is at home. Young Quebecers are not the only ones to be less fit for two generations. This problem affects all age groups in the West.
Since cats don’t breed dogs, if parents stay glued to their phones and eat poorly, their children will imitate them. Moving and taking care of your health should be easier and more valued.
However, health is too important an issue to make it solely a matter of individual responsibility.
We feel the Legault government attentive and concerned about this issue. During his first mandate, he introduced two mandatory recesses of 20 minutes and increased funding for extracurricular activities in high school.
It’s a great start. But improving the health of young Quebecers will require much more ambitious measures. Especially at school, an important vector of change.
The World Health Organization recommends one hour of physical activity per day for 6-17 year olds.
Most schools offer about two hours of physical education per week in primary, and 1 hour and 15 minutes in secondary (this is the recommendation of the Ministry of Education, which is not compulsory). It is off the mark.
For the moment, Quebec “does not intend” to increase the number of hours of physical education at school, indicates the office of Minister of Education Bernard Drainville.
It is to be hoped that the Legault government will change its mind and add more hours for physical education (eg: 2 hours more per week). Without deducting time from other subjects. Yes, that would mean increasing the school week to more than 25 hours of classes. Yes, it is complicated to set up. But the game would be worth it in the long run. For the health of Quebecers and for our public finances.
The bare minimum in the short term: Quebec must make compulsory two hours of physical education per week in elementary school and 1 hour 15 minutes per week in secondary school.
There are also other important solutions outside of physical education class.
About 47% of public high school students do extracurricular sports. We must continue to increase this percentage, which implies increasing funding (it must remain free to the public).
In high school, we need to give our children/teens more options to do physical activity in a non-competitive and social context. Many teens, especially girls, drop out of sports as teenagers because they don’t like the competitive aspect. The FitSpirit formula, which relies on the pleasure of moving, should be reproduced everywhere.
In elementary school, 60% of students attend daycare at school. This is a time of day when it shouldn’t be so hard to get kids moving. By reforming daycare, we could encourage/impose 30 or 45 minutes of physical activity a day after school.
So there are solutions.
Provided that we make physical activity and our lifestyle a national priority. Who lasts longer than one of those New Year’s resolutions already forgotten in February.