Mr. Chair, honourable members, thank you for the opportunity to speak at these important discussions about healthy living.
I'm pleased to be here today to build on those discussions with an emphasis on physical activity and healthy living.
As you all know, physical inactivity is one of the main modifiable risk factors for obesity and many chronic diseases. It is a global issue, recently identified by the World Health Organization as the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality, following high blood pressure, tobacco use, and high blood glucose.
As you also heard last week, the burden of chronic disease in Canada, as in many other countries, is significant and growing. Promoting physical activity and active lifestyles is one way to reduce this burden. Physical activity plays an important role in the health, well-being and quality of life of Canadians, particularly children and youth, and helps to prevent chronic diseases such as cancer, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.
Physical activity is not just a public health issue; it also promotes the well-being of communities and is an investment in future generations. Unfortunately, most Canadians are not getting enough physical activity to promote good health. We need to do more to move toward active lifestyles.
Of course, we know that this is not as easy as it sounds. Getting people moving in a society that makes it easy to be sedentary is a challenging task. While leisure-time physical activity levels may appear to be higher than ever, we know that Canadians are not as fit as they were once. Over time, our workplaces, household chores, and transportation options have evolved so that requirements, or rather opportunities, for physical activity have been reduced. Counteracting these societal shifts often requires significant effort by individuals to be active.
Nevertheless, the Government of Canada is committed to addressing the growing problem of physical inactivity and its health implications among Canadians. As you have heard, federal, provincial, and territorial ministers of health and healthy living have recently endorsed a declaration on prevention and promotion, a commitment to helping Canadians lead healthier lives. FPT governments have also launched a framework for action to promote healthy weights, which includes a commitment to creating supportive environments for children for physical activity.
Given that the solution to physical inactivity does not rest with any one sector, we are making connections between the sport, physical activity, and recreational sectors and those responsible for health and education. PHAC is working through a forum of FPT ministers responsible for sport, physical activity, and recreation, who set physical activity targets for children and youth in 2008 and agreed in 2009 to focus specifically on increasing children's physical activity in the after-school time period; enhancing cross-government and intersectoral collaboration with, among others, provincial ministers of education; and aligning and coordinating physical activity social marketing messages across Canada.
The Government of Canada has made several investments to increase physical activity in partnership with PTs and NGOs, including for example ParticipAction and PHE Canada. In addition, the children's fitness tax credit helps parents increase their children's physical activity and participation in sport programs by offsetting some of the costs. The Recreational Infrastructure Canada program provides funding to municipalities to improve and develop sport and recreational facilities.
At the federal level, we have a specific role in providing leadership on public health issues and are promoting community-based intersectoral collaboration to support the kinds of fundamental changes that are needed to get Canadians moving. These include such things as promoting active and safe routes to school and pedestrian and bike-friendly community planning. The age-friendly communities initiative, in which five provinces are engaged, has Canadian seniors involved in planning and design with their own communities to create healthier, more active, and safer places for them to live and thrive.
These are some examples of how we are raising awareness about the health impacts of community design with a view to encouraging a legacy of health-promotion communities.
The Government of Canada also has an important role to play in ensuring that our policies and programs are grounded in evidence. Canada is considered a world leader in the measurement of physical activity and in the development of evidence-based guidelines. The newly released physical activity guidelines are based on evidence funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada, evidence that was also used in the development of the WHO guidelines.
We acknowledge that there are still gaps in our understanding. We are partnering with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to support knowledge syntheses on physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and health.
Lastly, we know that it is critical to continue to raise levels of awareness and education about the importance of physical activity and healthy eating. The agency will continue to work with stakeholders to develop additional tools and resources to help Canadians become and stay physically active.
At the root of physical activity specifically, and healthy living generally, is the importance of making healthy choices easier for Canadians. While there is much work to be done, we believe that we are on the right track.
Thank you for the opportunity to present today.