The Situation in Canada
People living physically active lifestyles will lead to healthier communities through injury prevention and general health and wellness. The overlap between the sport, recreation, education, and health sectors not only helps with the integration of facilities and the delivery of quality sport and physical activity programming, but it ultimately leads to a healthy Canadian population.
Data from the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS) indicates that the average Canadian is weaker, less flexible, and fatter than they were just a generation ago (twenty years). This means that as a country, we are less physically fit than we have been in the past.
Physical activity is an integral component of healthy living: regular participation in physical activities is associated with important physical, cognitive, and emotional benefits contributing to healthy musculoskeletal development, maintenance of healthy body weights, prevention of high blood pressure, and social and mental development.
How Sport for Life Supports Health Practitioners
Sport for Life readily aligns with early and preventative healthcare and collaborates with both primary care and allied health practitioners. This focus on health and wellness is one way in which Sport for Life fits into Canada’s healthcare model.
By putting the programs in place that will give people an active start – a start that will help them develop the competence, confidence, and motivation that make up physical literacy – Sport for Life and the health sector can increase the chance that our population will get healthier and stay physically active for life.
Resources and Links
- Ever Active Schools
- HIGH FIVE®
- Healthy Families BC
- Our Health Our Future
- OSPAPPH
- Exercise is Medicine®
- Play Safe Initiative
Provincial Healthy Living Websites:
- BC Healthy Living Alliance
- My Health Alberta
- Saskatchewan! Making Healthy Choices
- Manitoba Healthy Living, Youth and Seniors
- Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
- Heart & Stroke Foundation of Quebec
- New Brunswick Wellness, Culture and Sport
- Prince Edward Island Department of Health and Wellness
- Nova Scotia Health and Wellness
- Newfoundland and Labrador Health and Community Services
- Yukon Health and Social Services
- Northwest Territories Health and Social Services
- Nunavut Health and Social Services