Evidence of meeting #49 for Health in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was schools.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
That would be terrific. Thank you.
Do we still have the healthy schools program? Does that still exist?
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Executive Director, Physical and Health Education Canada
Is it the joint consortium or is it...?
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Liberal
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Liberal
5 p.m.
Executive Director, Physical and Health Education Canada
Yes, I can definitely share some information with you.
In Alberta they have an organization called Ever Active Schools. They have done a lot of great work with health in schools, and we're working closely with them. One of the things we would like to do that we think would motivate and inspire schools to do more is to have a recognition program. It would recognize schools that are doing excellent work in the field. Daily physical education, quality school health, daily physical activity initiatives, services, programs, partnerships with communities, a holistic approach—the ethos within the healthy schools is all-encompassing. As soon as you walk into the school, you see the policies that are in place, the services that are offered, the wellness programs even for the teachers and the educators.
5 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
This is very helpful. Is there a role for the federal government in supporting healthy schools?
5 p.m.
Executive Director, Physical and Health Education Canada
Absolutely, and it is especially in evidence in the health-promoting schools initiative. We can set up tools and resources that support schools in assessing where they are and the types of things they need to be doing to become a health-promoting school.
A national recognition program, or a move toward a certification program, would be a great goal for schools to aspire to. Our vision of healthy schools is that the health of the school becomes an asset within the community. When parents have to make choices about the school their child is going to go to, which is a lot more complicated than when I was a child, because we have a lot more variety, we want them to make choices based on the health-promoting schools approach.
5 p.m.
Executive Director, Physical and Health Education Canada
No, but I can give you some background information on our vision and our direction.
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President and Chief Executive Officer, ParticipACTION
With respect to the ParticipACTION awards, we need common metrics. We need them right across the country, because it's very difficult to do research if we're comparing apples and oranges. That's part of the ParticipACTION awards. We've been working with Dr. Mark Tremblay at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario to create a common metrics process that would be used right across the country.
Schools want to be doing fabulous things and they want healthier children. So it's not as if they're not trying to do this. It's that they have many initiatives on their plate. If we could create a program that is turnkey, like the ParticipACTION awards, I believe schools would take it up right away. We have an opportunity to create something that would go right across the country, would have the buy-in and support of all provinces and territories and every school board in the country.
5 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Okay.
Jim, can you talk about what chronic health conditions currently exist in children? For example, we have a real increase in child diabetes. What is that going to mean a decade or two from now?
5 p.m.
Member, Advocacy Committee, Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada
I think we all appreciate the severity of particularly the diabetes situation. It's going to mean increased hospitalization and medical care costs. Do we want to keep seeing increases in the need for medical care at hospitals and at front-line clinics, increased drug costs, etc., when we know that we should be putting the money into prevention in order to not have these situations arising in the future?
I think we're seeing the tip of the iceberg at the moment.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Hicks, you mentioned something in your opening statement that I'm curious about. You mentioned, I believe, federal recognition of credentials, or something along those lines. I'm wondering if you could expand on that.
My background is that I'm a chiropractor. I'm also a kinesiologist. I was, believe it or not, an exercise fitness trainer when I was younger as well....
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A voice
Whoo!
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Voices
Oh, oh!
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Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
All of these were at a provincial level, and I'm curious to know how that would work and what benefits you'd see if you did a national recognition.
We've had other different professions in front of us, so perhaps you could elaborate on that a bit.
5:05 p.m.
President, Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology
Certainly. It's a great question.
We fully appreciate that certification is a provincial thing, but there are so many gyms out there, and so many personal trainers in these gyms...and not all of them are really, we feel, qualified to deliver the kind of exercise and fitness and lifestyle change advice that they could be.
At CSEP we are really proud of the certifications we have in our program for the CSEP certified personal trainer and the CSEP certified exercise physiologist. We have very rigorous standards. Our professionals I think have the lowest insurance rates out of any fitness professionals out there, probably because they aren't ever getting sued because they are so well trained.
Our message is really that we want to make sure, since we are trying to promote people to get active, and a lot of people do join gyms...not everyone, albeit, but a lot of people do join gyms. We think it would be a great idea if the federal government would at least support the value in professional certification and certification of qualified professionals. In our organization, we're very proud of our certification.
So that's where that was coming from.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Thank you very much, because that kind of leads into my next question.
First, I want to commend you on these guidelines. I think they're fantastic. I remember that when you put them out, though, there was a little bit of criticism of them. You mentioned earlier...and we've heard a lot of people say that the government should subsidize different physical fitness things.
But I remember that when I was a kid, we used to go out and play pick-up hockey. We would cycle, we would swim, we would do all kinds of things. My colleague mentioned earlier that, you know, it's not fun anymore...?
I'm wondering if you could elaborate on that a bit, on the guidelines and on how families can maybe get the fun back into it. It doesn't necessarily have to cost a lot.
As well, if we have time, I'm wondering if you could comment on the science behind these recommendations. I see them as being excellent and valid, but there was some criticism, and I just wanted to give you the opportunity to address that while you're here.
5:05 p.m.
President, Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology
Thank you. I'd love to.
When the guidelines were leaked in early January by some media, there was kind of a big headline that the recommendations, in terms of the amounts of physical activity, were less than the old guidelines. That's not really the case. That was a misinterpretation of some...not really leaked, but gathered information that was not correct.
The main point we want to make about these new guidelines is...as president of our society, I am so proud of these guidelines, because it was a four-year effort, a systematic review of the evidence. Thousands and thousands of research articles were reviewed to come up with these recommendations.
As Kelly alluded to, the research that went into the guidelines has been used by the World Health Organization for their global recommendations on physical activity, by the U.K. and Australia. We should be proud of our Canadian scientists for the work they did in developing the science behind the guidelines.
What happened was, yes, we had a four-year process of evaluating the scientific evidence. That evidence was then synthesized and evaluated by an expert consensus panel and thousands of stakeholders to come up with the recommendations for the so-called minimum amounts of physical activity needed for health benefits.
We did it for three age categories: children and youth, adults, and older adults, recognizing that it's not just children and youth who are important.
We have these new guidelines. We should be tremendously proud. We got a little bit frustrated toward the end of the process, I'm going to be honest with you, because of the dried-up funding. We kind of got the wind taken out of our sails in terms of being able to push the project to completion. We were so proud that we were able to do it and that we got partners like ParticipACTION behind us. We're really excited about the product.
In terms of your question about putting the fun back into physical activity, that was always our goal as well. We didn't want these guidelines to be so prescriptive that people would read them and say, “I can't follow these guidelines because I don't live close to a gym”, or “We don't have the money for our kids to do this, this or this.”
That's what was so important when we went through the messaging of our physical activity recommendations. The research told us what the minimum amounts needed were. We then went on and gathered together some behavioural scientists to see how we could message this appropriately, so that it could be taken up by Canadians in a way that they could say, “Yes, we can do this. This isn't going to be hard. Anybody can do it.”
