Ninety-nine percent of children living in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) don’t get enough exercise, according to a new study.
Researchers from the University of Toronto and Dalhousie University tracked the physical activity of 856 grade five and six students in the GTA for one week.
The students wore accelerometers – tiny devices that are similar to pedometers, but which measure all types of motion – for about 16 and a half hours a day.
The information recorded by the devices showed that, on average, boys got about 35 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day. Girls got about 24 minutes of activity per day.
Experts* recommend that children aged five to 17 should get 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity each day.
Being physically active can help children to develop stronger hearts, bones and muscles, and to maintain a healthy body weight.
Active children are also less likely to develop diseases like diabetes or high blood pressure, or to use drugs, alcohol or tobacco than children who don’t get enough exercise.
A similar study was done in 2009 of children all across Canada. According to that study, the national average is 61 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity a day for boys, and 47 minutes for girls.
* One of the groups of experts making this recommendation is The Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology, an organization that studies the effects of exercise on health.
Related sites
Online interactive flipbook from Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology.
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
By Jonathan Tilly
Writing/Discussion Prompt
Write a record of the exercise you do in one day. Start in the morning and list all of the activities you do that count as exercise. Make sure to include both the time you started and finished each activity. Predict if you exercised more or less than the suggested ammount. Add up all of the minutes of exercise listed on your journal. Was your expectation correct? Do you exercise enough?
Reading Prompt: Demonstrate Understanding
What are the most importan facts in todays story. Rank the facts from 1-5 in order from most important (1) to least important (5). Compare your list with a neighbours. In what ways were your lists similar? In what ways were they different? Now listen to each other’s reasoning. Now, with your partner, make a new list of up to 7 things and rank them in order.
Primary & Junior
Demonstrate understanding of a variety of texts by identifying important ideas and some supporting details (OME, Reading: 1.4).
Intermediate
Demonstrate understanding of increas- ingly complex texts by summarizing important ideas and citing a variety of details that support the main idea (OME, Reading: 1.4).
Grammar Feature: Comma (Thought Interuption)
A comma is a punctuation mark that can be used to do many different things. One of the ways a comma can be used is to show thought interuption. When an author interupts their sentence to include an aside or additional information this can be shown with commas. For example, in the sentences below commas are used on either side of the extra information the author is providing.
“The information recorded by the devices showed that, on average, boys got about 35 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day.”
Active children are also less likely to develop diseases like diabetes or high blood pressure, or to use drugs, alcohol or tobacco than children who don’t get enough exercise.”
It is easy to see if material is interupted thought by rereading the sentence without that section. If the section makes sense without that section, it is considered additional information.
Write three sentences of your own. These sentences should include commas to show that you’ve interupted your thought in order to give your reader additional information.
