Healthy Kids

Fact One in four Canadian children is overweight or obese
Fact Just one in 10 gets enough exercise
Fact Unsupervised after-school hours are ground zero for unhealthy temptations — screen time and junk food
Fact 80 percent of kids want after-school activities, but have no access or don’t know where to go

Aussie rules
How one country got kids off the couch
Canada can take a lesson from Australia, which has similar levels of childhood inactivity and obesity. In 2005, the Australian government launched the national Active After-School Communities program, involving 3,200 schools and up to 150,000 children. Two to three times a week after school, these students use the gyms, playgrounds and nearby facilities to swim or play soccer, basketball, Frisbee or one of the more than 70 games and sports in the program. Plus, they fuel up on fresh fruit and other nutritious snacks. The cost to families? Zero. The government picks up the tab (about $33.5 million Canadian a year) for equipment, training and coaches. The emphasis is on participation and fun, not competition and skill drills.

The results? Participating kids have almost doubled the time they spend in sports activity, and two-thirds want to join a new sports club. “There have been a whole lot of spinoffs,” says Judy Flanagan, who directs the program for the Australian Sports Commission. “The kids are eating better, they are sleeping better, and teachers are seeing greater concentration from kids who had struggled academically.”

Sounds like a winning combination.