City has ‘room for improvement’ in making active living a priority
Before two new schools opened in Katya Herman’s neighbourhood of Harbour Landing last fall, children in the area had to attend schools on the east side of Lewvan Drive.
“I don’t think any parent is going to send their young child walking or biking across the Lewvan to get to school, to get to their friend’s place,” said Herman, a University of Regina assistant professor in kinesiology, health and sport.
In a province with the highest child and youth obesity rate in Canada, neighbourhood connectivity is one of many points to consider when discussing physical fitness.
Herman is one of four co-authors of “Active living in Saskatchewan: A review of official community plans,” along with U of R PhD student Oluwasegun Hassan, Cathie Kryzanowski of Saskatchewan In Motion and University of British Columbia professor Guy Faulkner.
For the report, published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, the team reviewed the official community plan (OCP) from 17 Saskatchewan cities and towns, using 17 indicators to assess how communities promote physical activity.
One indicator was whether the official community plan had an explicit policy statement to promote active living — which was the case in Regina, Yorkton, Warman, Weyburn, Prince Albert and Kindersley.
“The majority didn’t refer to physical activity specifically,” said Herman. “An active community is a healthy community ... Making the healthy choice the easy choice.
“We’ve done a really good job engineering physical activity out of our lives to the point where we need to now turn around and perhaps in different ways try to engineer it back into our lives. And that’s where the healthy public policy comes in, trying to make it easier to make that choice, because physical activity is no longer necessary for us on a day-to-day basis.”
In Saskatchewan, 46 per cent of adults are obese, according to a Statistics Canada report from August 2017, and 19 per cent of youths are obese.
Other OCP indicators included having a cycling master plan (which Saskatoon is considering), having a policy statement to promote active recreation (which Regina has but Saskatoon lacks) and having a master plan for connecting pathways and trails (which only Yorkton has).
Connectivity is important, said Herman, “trying to get people to where they go, making it easy to use active transportation instead of having to jump in our cars all the time.”
A good example is in Saskatoon, where a pedestrian overpass allows people to safely and easily cross the busy College Drive.
But Saskatoon was only the fourth-best municipality when it came to promoting active living, meeting 10 of 17 indicators. Regina met 11 for third place.
Moose Jaw and Warman tied for fifth, meeting nine indicators.
Prince Albert was second best with 12 and Yorkton, meeting 14 of 17 indicators, was No. 1.
Lloydminster, having met three indicators, was in last place.
“There is evidence that ... active cities are healthier cities,” said Hassan.
That includes reducing pollution and creating a safer environment with bike lanes and trails reducing the danger of collisions.
Those things can result in an improved economy, said Hassan, by “attracting people, putting that city in the profile of the world, so whereby people know that this city’s providing these sort of opportunities.”
Herman said there are pros and cons in Regina, where there are many pathways and trails — especially in newly developed neighbourhoods — but the cycling infrastructure is lacking and new neighbourhoods aren’t as connected to the rest of the city.
“There’s certainly room for improvement,” said Herman.
Fewer than 15 per cent of children aged five to 11 are getting the required 60 minutes a day of physical activity, according to a 2016 ParticipACTION report card.
“They need to be encouraged to go outside, but the first step is to have those safe places for parents to feel that it’s safe to send their kids outside,” said Herman. “In a lot of cases, kids are coming home from school and parents are telling them ‘stay inside.’ ”
The father of an eight-monthold son, Hassan said one reason he undertook this research is to contribute to “creating active communities that my son would definitely enjoy in the long run.”
The report considered Estevan, Humboldt, Kindersley, Lloydminster, Martensville, Meadow Lake, Melfort, Melville, Moose Jaw, North Battleford, Prince Albert, Regina, Saskatoon, Swift Current, Warman, Weyburn and Yorkton.
Visit journal.cpha.ca to read the full research paper.