Video fun

It could be considered common knowledge that physical activity is very important to maintaining and improving our health.

As practitioners we know this, and most of the public has a pretty good idea they should.

That being said, it's nice to be reminded of the heath benefits. It reminds me why I care about my work and why I choose this field in the first place.

I first saw this on Facebook and then of course it got passed along via blogs and emails. So I am just continuing the love. Oh, don't worry, the video fun does not stop here.








I appreciate videos. They are (usually) more entertaining then reading a document or paper. They can be a great way to share information and inspire folks, and with the help of technology they can reach a lot of people.

Now the next video is a bit longer... its from TED.

This one discusses the concept of public health. Though the speaker's references are NOT about physical activity, I think her point is important to the physical activity field. "People do stupid things" (i.e. not be active), "for perfectly rational reasons."

We may know the benefits and all the reasons why we should be more active, yet most of us are not active enough. Why? To help answer this question we need to look beyond the individual and understand how society and policies shape behaviour.

Enjoy!!

Step counts and cadence

I had the absolute pleasure to meet Dr. Catrine Tudor-Locke last week. For those of you who may not be too familiar with her work, she does a lot of research regarding walking and pedometers.

I wanted to share a couple items of her latest research which I thought was quite exciting and practical.

Step count recommendations:

All too often in my work I am asked about the 10,000 steps count “target” for adults. Interestingly enough there is not much research supporting it as a target itself. The 10,000 steps was basically a number that was develop out of best practice and fit well with public health and physical activity promotion needs. Dr. Tudor-Locke recently published three reviews, which are open to the general public that have recommendations with step counts for children/youth, adults and older adults. In these reviews she has looked at the research to help develop step count recommendations.

Basically, she debunked the 10,000 step “target”, indicating that for adults there may be health benefits with daily step counts at around 7000. Of course there is nothing wrong with aiming for 10,000 steps, however it should not been seen as the only target. In fact, researchers have also shown that increasing your step counts above what you normally do may be more important than achieving a set target.

Cadence:

The other item Dr. Tudor-Locke is researching is the importance of cadence, i.e. how fast we walk.

It makes sense to think about our walking speed. When we look at the Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines we are encouraged to be active at a moderate-vigorous intensity. Therefore by looking at our cadence (i.e. our steps/min), we can get an idea of intensity.

In her work she has shown that about 100 steps/min is equivalent to 3 METS. For those of you who don’t have a background in exercise physiology, this could be interpreted as moderate intensity.

So what does this all mean for us practitioners? Well, pedometers are still a great tool to get people moving more and hopefully moving more regularly.

• Encourage the people you work with to increase their step counts above their typical levels. Don’t worry as much about them achieving 10,000 steps, but perhaps encourage them to set step counts for themselves. For example, if a person you work with gets on average 6000 steps/ day, perhaps a meaningful and realistic goal for this person is to increase their step count up to 7000-8000 steps/day.

• Use cadence as a learning tool for your clients. For example, have them try walking at least 100 steps/minute for a few minutes. This allows them to get an idea of what their pace should be at when walking at a moderate intensity. Have them try different cadences to see which one they feel comfortable with. The idea of doing this is help create a sense of how fast they should be walking to get more benefit out of their steps.

So how have you used pedometers and walking in the programs you run? I would like to hear your stories and ideas.

Tudor-Locke, C., Craig, C.L.,, Beets, M.W., Belton, S., Cardon, G.M., Duncan, S., Lubans, D., Olds, T.S., Raustorp, A., Rowe, D.A., Spence, J.C., Tanaka, S., & Blair, S.N. How many steps are enough? For children and youth. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 2011, 9:78.

Tudor-Locke, C., Craig, C.L.,, Brown, W., Clemes, S.A., De Cocker, K., Giles-Corti, B., Hatano, Y., Inoue, S., Matsudo, S.M., Mutrie, N., Oppert, J.-M., Rowe, D.A., Schmidt, M., Schofield, G.M., Spence, J.D., Teixeira, P.J., Tully, M.A., & Blair, S.N. How many steps are enough? For adults. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 2011, 9:79.

Tudor-Locke, C., Craig, C.L., Aoyagi, S., Bell, R.C., Croteau, K.A., De Bourdeaudhuij, I., Ewald, B., Gardner, A.W., Hatano, Y., Lutes, L.D., Matsudo, S.M., Rogers, L.Q., Rowe, D.A., Schmidt, M.D., Tully, M.A., & Blair, S.N. How many steps are enough? For older adults and special populations. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 2011, 9:80.

Active Canada 20/20: Speak up now!

Last week I had the honour to help facilitate a consultation on the Active Canada 20/20 National Physical Activity Strategy at Alberta’s Action on Wellness Symposium. For those who may not be familiar with Active Canada 20/20, I would definitely encourage you to check out the website.

This strategy is being developed by a steering committee of organizations and stakeholders around the country who feel that Canada needs a physical activity strategy. Other countries have strategies (e.g., USA, Scotland) and we need one too.

The goal is to provide clear direction and vision on helping to increase physical activity opportunities and reducing sedentary behaviours. It is planned that this strategy will be presented to the Federal, Provincial and Territorial Ministers responsible for physical activity in their jurisdiction in April 2012.

During the summer months there was an online survey to gather feedback on the Strategy. Now the steering committee is taking the consultation process further by hosting facilitated consultations in many of the provinces and territories. Alberta was fortunate enough to host the 3^rd consultation just last week in Banff.

As you might guess, the purpose to the consultation was to get some direct feedback from practitioners and decision makers in the physical activity field on the Active Canada 20/20 strategy. It was a very busy three hour facilitation process, but fantastic to hear all the ideas and suggestions that emerged.

By chance or luck, there was a large group of high school students who were able to participate. What a fantastic addition to the process! Even though some of the concepts being discussed were at a policy and organizational level, many of these students were able to provide clear and original suggestions.

Currently the Active Canada 20/20 is in draft format, so this is the perfect time for YOU to provide some feedback of your own. So, even if you did not make it to the consultation process, I encourage you to review the strategy and share your ideas and suggestions.

You can access the most current draft here: http://www.activecanada2020.ca/home/documents

And you can provide feedback to this email: info@activecanada2020.ca

Exploring walkability solutions in not-so walkable places

I had a delightful conversation not long ago with a reporter from Calgary. He was working on a series about walking and walkable communities. Of course a good part of our conversation was about the built environment and how it influences walking, in particular active transportation.

We know that mixed-use neighbourhoods, with residential, businesses and services, encourage walking.

We also know that street connectivity also increases walkability (i.e. how easy is it to get from point A to point B). For example, the traditional grid system street layout often proves to be more walkable than the cul-de-sac and lolly-pop layouts.

However, when we focus on just these two items when discussing the built environment we tend to get a bit negative about finding solutions. Tearing down and re-building communities are just not an option. My reporter asked the perfect question to help look for different solutions.

“What should be done in the neighbourhoods that are classified as not very walkable to make or improve the walkability? What a fantastic question.

This means we need to look beyond street connectivity and mixed use and explore some other options.

Providing a safe place to walk.

- Pedestrians need a place to walk. If there are not any sidewalks this really deters walking. So what should we do in a neighbourhood that has no sidewalks? First, the city or town council needs to be approached and convinced to address this issue in the future planning for that neighbourhood. However, this could take many years. An example of an interim solution is to actually dedicate a portion of the road for pedestrians. Using road paint can help make this clear.

- Consider extending your sidewalks so they are wider. Wide sidewalks encourage walking and at the same time may help to slow traffic.

- Consider adding barriers in between the pedestrians and the vehicles, this could be green space, trees and plants, park benches.

- Keep sidewalks well lit at night.

Here are some examples and other ideas about sidewalks and walkways.

Look at ways to slow or calm traffic.

- Speed bumps, chockers, mini circles, or even gateways into your community are a few examples.

- Check out this website for images and explanations of many great ways to calm traffic.

- Pushing for lower speed limit in your neighbourhood .

Crosswalks that are safer and put pedestrians first

- Make crosswalks as visible as possible to vehicles. Use of lights, signs and paint can help with this.

- Ensure crosswalks are visible in both day and at night.

- Make it easier to cross by adding curb extension (this decreases the area a pedestrian has to actually cross on the road.

- Check out this page for some fantastic examples.

Of course some of these ideas need the city or town to be involved, which can take time. Plus some of these ideas may still be costly.

However, inexpensive and time efficient solutions also do exist; it just means putting on the creativity thinking cap.

One example of an inexpensive solution was creating curb extensions with gigantic flower planters and some road paint. The community placed 2 gigantic planters a couple feet out from each side of the crosswalk. They then painted cross walking lines. It was aesthetically pleasing, and it worked.

Have you seen some neat ways communities have helped make their neighbourhood more walkable?

What about winter? How can we keep our neighbourhoods walkable in our cold and snowy Canadian winters?

I would love to hear your suggestions or thoughts.

Physical Activity Counselling Toolkit

So I feel a little like blowing my own horn today.
As some of you may know, the Centre here has launched the new Physical Activity Counselling Toolkit.

I can proudly say I headed up this project, and had some fantastic help from my co-workers and from the advisory committee. I encourage you to check out our new toolkit... but also to keep an eye out for our translated versions, likely coming this fall.

The Alberta Centre for Active Living had been approached by various practitioners (e.g., exercise physiologist), requesting a need for resources and tools that would help them do physical activity counseling. So this project came out of a direct need from practitioners.

This was tough, but rewarding project. I was shocked at how much time each resource took to create. We wanted to make sure the content was based on the latest research. Plus we wanted to ensure that the information was written to best promote behaviour change ( this meant I had to brush up on my behaviour change theories- no easy feat).

We also wanted to make sure that each resources was written in very plain language and actually useful to practitioners. To achieve this, it required evaluating the readability of each resources and subsequent drafts. It also meant having the resources evaluated by practitioners and the clients they work with.

So, yes a lot of work. But the feed back we have been getting from across Canada and even around the world (that's right, folks in UK, Australia and South Africa have contacted us), has been outstanding.

This basically shows that resources like these are needed. The sweat, blood and tears that went into these was definitely worth it. Now... we just need to hunt down further funding so we can add to this collection.

I encourage you to check out our toolkit and please feel free to share your comments with me.

Moving little ones. Part 3

Interestingly there has been some international activity on this topic, so I have a short "part three" for you.

The UK just released their physical activity guidelines on for children under 5.
These guidelines recommend that children under 5, who are walking, should be active at least 180 minutes (3 hours) spread throughout their day.

They also provided guidelines for children under 5 who are not walking. For this group the focus seems to be on infants, and floor play time and water based physical activities are encouraged.

So what about Canada?
Well according to CSEP, Canada will have its own guidelines most likely in Spring of 2012.
Though I suspect they will not be much different from what UK has provided. We shall see.

In the mean time, we know the little ones need physical activity... so lets get them moving :)

Moving little ones. Part 2

As promised in my previous blog, I have dedicated this entry to posting about some neat and useful resources that exist.

The good news is, even though we lack specific Canadian guidelines on physical activity for children younger than the age of five, we actually have a plethora of resources out there about getting this age group moving.

First I would encourage you to check out the Canadian Sport for Life (CS4L) website. Part of this movement is to encourage strong physical literacy in younger children, before they even try sports. They have a whole staged devoted to children from 0-6 titled “Active Start”.

The focus of this stage is to simply encourage these kiddies to learn to move their body in different ways and in different places, especially during unstructured play. The goal is to help these children learn to control their body, develop locomotor skill (i.e. rolling, crawling, and catching and rolling a ball). Basically to help lay the foundation for strong physical literacy.

You can also refer to the Active for Life website, which I believe is a dedicated spin-off from CS4L to focus on physical literacy. This website is focused towards parents, but also very useful for those working with children as well. You will find the website fun and easy to use.

Another great resource that is full of ideas is A Hop, Skip and a Jump: Enhancing Physical Literacy. This resource will give you ideas of games and activities to lead kids through. What all these resources emphasis is that with younger children physical activity is all about learning to move their body. So when they are old enough to plays sports, the emphasis should never be on competitiveness but rather on skill development.

All resources encourage a blend of structured (i.e. playing sport) and unstructured (active play which does not adhere to rules, time lines), although most put an emphasis on unstructured play.

Also, all the resources encourage adults to be involved (even during unstructured play), to help provide feedback, to model the physical movement, and to help make the activity enjoyable.

To wrap up, I encourage you to watch this video on Active Play.

Moving little ones. Part 1.

When I encounter toddlers and pre-school aged children I am often very overwhelmed by the amount of activity and movement that is going on around my knees (and also by the increase in noise). These kids move… they like to move… and in some cases they like to move loudly.

However, are they moving enough? We know that children in school are definitely not active enough. According to the Canadian Health Measures Survey (direct measure using Accelerometers) only 14% of boys (aged 6-10) and 7% of girls (aged 6-10) are meeting the Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines.

So what about the younger kids, the noisy ankle biters, are they active enough? Well to answer that we need:

• Guidelines or recommendations on how active they “should” be…
  

• Statistics /research that has measured whether these guidelines are being met in this age group.

I decided to do some investigating to see if I could answer this question for you. Not to spoil the anticipation for you, but I didn’t find that much.

Currently in Canada we do not have national physical activity guidelines for children aged 0-5, however CSEP (Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology) has indicated they hope to develop them. The biggest issue is lack of research done for this age group. There is not enough knowledge around how much physical activity is beneficial. We know it’s important; we just don’t have the details yet. Therefore, we may have to wait a while until guidelines are developed.

That being said, there are some guidelines that are out and available.

Many researchers and organizations have referred to the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE), which provides physical activity guidelines for the 0-5 age range. This is an organization based in the USA. Here are their guidelines.

Some of their key points are listed below:

Toddlers:

• Toddlers should engage in a total of at least 30 minutes of structured physical activity each day.
• Toddlers should engage in at least 60 minutes -- and up to several hours -- per day of unstructured physical activity and should not be sedentary for more than 60 minutes at a time, except when sleeping.
• Toddlers should be given ample opportunities to develop movement skills that will serve as the building blocks for future motor skillfulness and physical activity.

Pre-schoolers:

• Preschoolers should accumulate at least 60 minutes of structured physical activity each day.
• Preschoolers should engage in at least 60 minutes -- and up to several hours -- of unstructured physical activity each day, and should not be sedentary for more than 60 minutes at a time, except when sleeping.
• Preschoolers should be encouraged to develop competence in fundamental motor skills that will serve as the building blocks for future motor skillfulness and physical activity.

Other recommendations I have encountered in the literature (Timmons et al 2007) are:

• Physical activity promotion with this group needs to their natural activity patterns, which are very spontaneous, and intermittent. They are not going to be active like adults or even older children.
• The focus should be on gross motor skills and learning to simply move around. Many refer to this as fundamental movement skills.
• The activities should be fun and not a task they are “required to do”.
• Adults modeling the skills and providing feedback may help the learning process and make it more enjoyable.
• Whenever possible they should be outside and given opportunity to explore outdoor play spaces and equipment.

As for finding research on whether or not children were meeting these guidelines I was not too successful in finding a clear answer for you. The one issue researchers are running into using the NASPE guidelines is they are open to interpretation with regards to intensity.

So this leaves the guidelines open to interpretation by the researcher, or in some cases by the parent or the caregiver reporting on the physical activity. Plus, keeping track of how active a child is at this age is…well tricky.

So the answer remains the same. We don’t really know how active this age group is. But, I think we can be safe to assume they can be moving more.

In my next blog I hope to track down some resources and practical tips on physical activity for this age group. Until then - Cherrio!

Reference:

Timmons, BW; Naylor, PJ and Pfeiffer, KA. (2007). Physical activity for preschool children-how much and how? Canadian Journal of Public Health. 98(2). doi:10.1139/H07-112