New research from Statistics Canada shows that the majority of Canadians, preschoolers being the exception, do not meet Canadian 24-hour movement guidelines – physical activity levels recommended by the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology.
It found only 46 per cent of adults, 52 per cent of children between five and 11 years of age and just 21 per cent of youth between 12 and 17 years of age met recommended physical activity levels. Preschoolers were the notable exception – 91 per cent of those between three and four years of age met recommended physical activity levels.
Although most measures remained relatively unchanged since the last survey was recorded in 2018 and 2019, the percentage of youth getting enough exercise dropped notably from 36 per cent in the previous study period.
Although Statistics Canada does not indicate how many study participants were surveyed for the 2022 to 2024 sample, they say the data collection for the Canadian Health Measures Survey involved participants wearing an accelerometer on their waists for seven days to track how much time was spent being sedentary or engaged in light and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.
“Canadian guidelines for adults recommended no more than nine hours of accelerometer-measured sedentary time per day,” they write. “In the period from 2022 to 2024, Canadian adults spent an average of 9.3 hours per day of sedentary time, with just over two in five (42 per cent) meeting the recommendation.”
The study, Directly measured physical activity and sedentary time in Canada: New results from the Canadian Health Measures Survey, 2022 to 2024, also notes that youth have higher accelerometer-measured sedentary time, coming in at 10.6 hours per day. Children were sedentary 7.6 hours per day and preschoolers were sedentary just 6.6 hours per day.
