Parents aren’t confident getting their kids more active: UBCO study

Kids across Canada aren’t active enough and a UBCO professor is working to change that.

Health Promotion Assistant Professor Heather Gainforth studied a recent ParticiPACTION campaign to see if it raised parental awareness about their children's fitness levels.

According to Gainforth, only 7 per cent of kids are active enough to meet physical activity guidelines, yet 88 per cent of parents think their kids are active enough.

If Canadian parents are going to get their kids to exercise more, they need more than just public awareness campaigns, she found, because they just don’t seem to know where their kids are lacking.

"It is clear more needs to be done," Gainforth said. "While mass media campaigns appear to increase awareness, parents need the support of public policies and programs to help them successfully encourage behaviour change.

"Without that support, parents may not have the tools they need to help their kids become more active."

Gainforth surveyed 700 parents of children 5 to 17 across Canada three months after ParticipACTION’s 2011 “Think Again” campaign aired, and another 700 parents 15 months after.

She found that most parents who saw the campaign were less confident that they could encourage their kids to exercise more.

The campaign was designed to raise awareness among parents of physical activity guidelines, which call for kids to get at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise a day.

According to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), a lack of exercise has helped lead to more than 25 per cent of Canadian children becoming overweight or obese.

Weight problems have been found to increase rates of Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure in children and youth.