Practice of sport since the pandemic | The guys and the elders are getting busy

Boys aged 12 to 17 have resumed physical activity since the pandemic, but not girls, reveal data published by Statistics Canada on Wednesday. Adults have maintained their level of physical activity, even the oldest are more active compared to 2018. But young and old alike are spending more time in front of their screens.

Girls move less

Before COVID-19, 54.3% of boys met the physical activity recommendations of doing one hour of sport per day, compared to 44.7% of girls. These numbers fell during the first year of the pandemic, from September to December 2020, to 39.5% for boys and 34.8% for girls. They then rose again in 2021, but without reaching the pre-pandemic level: in 2022, 52.2% of boys respected the recommendations for physical activity, compared to only 35% of girls.

Barriers to practicing sport

Girls have always played fewer sports than boys, recalls Geneviève Leduc, senior program advisor at Fitactive. The results from Statistics Canada are therefore not so surprising, according to her. “We know the barriers to physical activity among girls. They often fear being judged, they may lack self-esteem or lack confidence in their physical abilities. And there is puberty which comes to play against them at a certain age,” explains the specialist in physical activity among adolescent girls. “All taken together, it means you have to work harder to get girls active, especially in adolescence,” she says.

More active seniors

Among adults, only men aged 18 to 64 reduced the time spent (- 17.5 minutes per week) on their physical activities between 2018 and 2021. Conversely, this time increased by 8.4 minutes per week. week for women aged 18 to 64 and 30 minutes per week, no less, for people aged 65 and over. The Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (CSEP) recommends 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous intensity activity per week for adults.

Screen time on the rise

Alongside physical activity, time spent in front of screens has increased for all age categories. In 2021, 56.4% of young people aged 12 to 17 spent more than four hours a day in front of a screen when they were off school. Among adults, 37% of those aged 18 to 64 and 41.7% of those aged over 65 also watched screens for more than four hours per day, when they were off work, in 2021. In all cases, this is an increase of more than 9 percentage points since 2018. CSEP recommends a maximum of two hours of screen time per day for adolescents and three hours per day for adults.

Solutions to explore

To increase the participation of sports, Statistics Canada believes that the provision of safe sidewalks and bicycle lanes, in order to increase active transportation, would benefit Canadians of all ages. The federal agency also suggests that parents should receive support regarding their children’s use of electronic devices. “One thing is certain,” emphasizes Geneviève Leduc, “all segments of the population would benefit from being more active, from replacing screen time with physical activity time, even if it is of light intensity. It’s not about being hot all the time. Active transportation matters. Taking a walk counts. »