New sedentary behaviour guidelines take aim at the couch potato culture of many Canadian youngsters by suggesting limits for sitting idle and spending time glued to TV, computer and game screens.
The Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology’s guidelines, unveiled Tuesday, focus on minimizing behaviours that involve little physical movement and the low expenditure of energy.
The group recommends children and youth aged five to 17 limit recreational screen time — including watching TV, playing passive video games and using the computer — to no more than two hours daily.
The guidelines suggest youngsters scale back on time spent indoors and sitting for extended periods. They also recommend limiting use of sedentary transport, like travelling by bus or car.
Instead, kids aged five to 11 are encouraged to walk to school with a group of neighbourhood kids; for youth 12 to 17, it’s recommended they walk or bike with friends. Instead of teens texting their friends, it’s suggested they visit with them instead.
The recommendations come just weeks after the society released revised physical activity guidelines for Canadians.
Children and youth are advised to get at least 60 minutes of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity daily.
But under current guidelines, CSEP said only seven per cent of youngsters are active enough to meet those targets. Meanwhile, they’re spending an average 8.6 hours a day — 62 per cent of their waking hours — being sedentary.
“We’re not saying replace sedentary behaviour with exercise per se — (although) that would be wonderful. But replace it with something else other than sedentary behaviour,” said Mark Tremblay, chair of the physical activity guidelines committee.
“If that’s just standing more often, then wonderful. If it’s walking more often, if it’s getting outside, if it’s doing chores around the house, if it’s doing a hobby that doesn’t have you sitting immobile, then what our research shows is that that is associated with a decrease in health risks over and above the benefits that kids get from high-level physical activity.”
Chronic disease risk is elevated if individuals are highly sedentary, so even an hour of recommended activity for kids isn’t full protection if they’re sedentary for the remainder of the day, noted Tremblay, who is also director of Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario.
Benefits of being less sedentary include improved fitness, self-esteem and school performance.
Tremblay said one reason to distinguish a reduction in sedentary behaviour from an increase in physical activity is that there are many more opportunities for intervention — and these can be so micro, they require little change or money.
“In that regard it doesn’t discriminate against vulnerable populations in any way,” he said, citing examples like standing while reading or going on a walking meeting to discuss a novel for English class.
“Probably as important as the interruption to the sedentary behaviour itself is the sort of reconditioning of the thinking that we need to sit down and do something.”
Nicholas Holt, associate professor in the faculty of physical education and recreation at the University of Alberta, said kids may be engaging in sedentary behaviours because they don’t have enough else to keep them occupied.
Providing more options will help break these habits, he said.
In the case of latch-key children, Holt said having them at home and watching TV or playing a video game after school is probably considered by many parents to be a safe activity.
“They’re going to be occupied at least, but of course, these are sedentary behaviours,” he said.
“Playing a video game or watching TV can be a source of enjoyment, it can be something kids like to do, but it’s not particularly healthy. So trying to reduce engagement in those behaviours over extended periods of time, one, two hours, what it means is kids are going to be more active.”
Tremblay said if kids have to stay indoors there has to be a way for families to encourage them to do things that don’t involve screen time. Better still would be to have an arrangement so they can do something outdoors in a supervised environment with other kids.
New Brunswick’s largest school district is making an effort to incorporate physical activity as part of the curriculum and student routine.
School District 2 recently announced the launch of its Move 2 Improve program at Beaverbrook School in Moncton. The district invested in treadmills, spin bikes and ellipticals to help improve student achievement and well-being.
Kelly Murumets, president and CEO of ParticipAction, said the new guidelines go hand-in-hand with the physical activity message. She said sedentary behaviour is “one more great red flag” for parents.
“Is it OK for the balance of a child’s day that they are just sitting or they are in a car or they are playing video games or they are watching a screen? And the answer is no,” she said from Halifax.
The idea of devoting more waking hours to activity and movement is an easier message for parents to digest because the shift can be made in small ways, such as ensuring kids don’t lay dormant on the couch while watching TV, Murumets said.
Linda Lord’s sons Matthew, 11, and Andrew, 8, play hockey in house league on weekends while five-year-old C.J. participates in a learn to skate program. At home, they’ll usually spend time watching TV and “naturally gravitate” towards Wii. After one of her sons came home with a poor grade on a math test, the Toronto mother decided the entire family would go without any screen time on weekdays, with the blackout period lifting on Friday nights.
Since the rule went into effect several weeks ago, the boys have spent time being active outdoors, skating at a rink next door and playing ball hockey on their neighbour’s yard.
Lord and her husband, Todd Dalglish, have also made walking their flat-coated retriever part of the routine.
“We used to ask the kids what they want to do. ‘Do you want to go out and toboggan? Do you want to take the dog for a walk?’ And they (used to say) ‘Oh no, I don’t want to go outside,”’ she said.
“Now the story changes. We say ‘This is what we’re going to do.’ Given the choice, they’d rather sit in front of the TV.”’
Online: www.csep.ca/guidelines