Consultant to promote youth fitness, co-operation among sports groups

The City of Kelowna will spend $25,000 this year on a consultant tasked with promoting better cooperation among sports groups.

Development of a so-called Community Sport Plan is also funded by a matching grant from RBC.

“It is vital for communities to have a strong local sport system that supports healthy and active lifestyles as well as community development,” reads part of a report going to council today from Jim Gabriel, the city’s director of active living and culture.

Only 12 per cent of Canadian youth get the recommended amount of physical activity, Gabriel says.

“Overweight children are four times more likely to be overweight as adults since early years of physical activity predict future sport participation levels,” he says.

The city intends to develop a “Sport for Life” model, the goals of which include getting more young people to become active, and encouraging more co-operation and sharing of resources between sports groups.

This is not the first time the city has backed an endeavour specifically aimed at encouraging higher levels of physical activity.

In 2005, the city launched a program called Kickstart Kelowna, with an annual budget of $600,000, to promote greater fitness among residents. The aim was to increase the number of people who were physically active by 20 per cent in time for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

But local surveys conducted by Ipsos-Reid as part of the Kickstart Kelowna program showed the number of Kelowna residents exercising for at least 30 minutes, three times a week, declined from 66 per cent in 2006 to 64 per cent in 2007.

No similar survey was done in 2008, and the Kickstart Kelowna program was wound down before the 2010 Winter Olympics.