Heavier, rounder and weaker
That’s a 12-year-old millennial versus a child in the 1980s, professor says
Here’s a doctor who gives the diagnosis straight up.
The patient, in this case, is the country of Canada.
Asked to rate Canadian youth on their health and fitness levels, Dr. Mark Tremblay, a professor of pediatric medicine at the University of Ottawa, speaks bluntly, almost sadly.
“Statistically, we’re not doing so well,” says Tremblay, director of the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group (HALO) based at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute. “Not just statistically, but meaningfully.”
Several years ago, Tremblay published a scientific paper comparing a 12-year-old boy and girl from 1981 to a typical 12-year-old in 2007 (based on Statistics Canada data collected from 2007-09). The changes were telling, if hardly surprising.
“It’s profound, just to summarize, that a 12-year-old is taller, heavier, rounder, weaker, less flexible and less aerobically fit than a generation ago,” Tremblay says.
One can surmise the fitness gap would be even larger today, based on the “F” grade doled out by Participaction — a non-profit that promotes active living — under the Sedentary Behaviour category in a 2016 report card on youth fitness.
According to Tremblay’s report, the waist circumference of a 12-year-old girl increased by six centimetres in the 1981/2007 comparison. The grip strength of a boy declined by 10 per cent. As Tremblay says, these findings make sense when we imagine the cultural shift in childhood activities over the past 30 years.
Children were outside every free moment, climbing trees, throwing balls and wrestling after school. They gripped sticks and fired snowballs.
“Just thinking about grip strength, children today grip, very gently, their smartphone, not a tree branch, and not the scruff of someone’s neck,” says Tremblay, 55, who grew up playing outside, as did most of his generation.
“These are very profound and, from a health perspective, very important changes we’ve seen over time.”
According to the World Health Organization, physical inactivity is the fourth-leading risk factor for mortality, contributing to an estimated 3.2-million deaths worldwide each year.
Ian Janssen of Queen’s University reported that sedentary behaviour cost the Canadian economy an estimated $6.8 billion in 2009. Continuing down this path with climbing rates of Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, the resulting hit to the economy due to health costs and absenteeism will be massive.
On the flip side, the Conference Board of Canada notes in a 2014 report that a simple intervention of increased physical activity and reduced sedentary behaviour would reduce health-care spending by more than $2 billion by the year 2040.
And still we sit idle.
The data on adult fitness is even grimmer. In 2015, Health Canada reported that 54 per cent of Canadian adults were considered overweight or obese, compared with 23.1 per cent of adolescents 12 to 17.
“Scientifically the fitness of our nation has declined,” Tremblay says. “We’ve demonstrated quite recently that aerobic fitness in children around the world has declined, in a systematic way across the last several decades. Again, not that surprising.
“The decline is slower in mid- and lower-income countries where they walk to school, do their chores, and need to lift things.”
How to change this picture? Tremblay draws a sigh, based on years of delivering a message unheeded.
A culture change is required, as fundamental as a glance back to Canada’s past, a simpler time when we spent hours outside, engaged in work and play. Those same electronic devices holding adults and children in a spell deliver overwrought tales from around the globe of danger lurking around the corner.
“If you send your eight-year-old out to play on his own, some nosy neighbour is going to call child services and a whole orchestration is involved,” Tremblay says.
In the 1960s if a child wasn’t outside playing, neighbours would have thought that family strange.
Fear permeates our culture, and not just because of the latest terrorist attack.
Tremblay notes dryly, “You can’t go out in the morning because of mosquitoes and the risk of West Nile (virus). Later in the day, there is rush-hour traffic … pollution. Sun causes skin cancer. So, you can’t go out at any point in time.”
The solution seems simple: Shake the fear and open the door. Instantly, activity levels rise, sedentary behaviours wane. Bone density improves. Stress evaporates. Texting while walking becomes difficult, but the smartphone will dutifully record an active step count. Later in the day, sleep should be better.
“Incidental eating is reduced,” Tremblay says, of the byproducts of going outdoors. “Steps increase. Connection with the environment is improved. The chances of authentic interaction with people, animals, plants is infinitely greater. And on it goes.” Tremblay calls the widespread opportunity of an outdoor activity, as rudimentary as a walk, the “low-hanging fruit” against a building health-care crisis.
“I’m looking out my back window right now,” says Tremblay, watching his dogs wrestle playfully. “It’s there. It’s free. I can go there right now and do something, and so can everyone.”
The majority of Canadians live within a kilometre of a public park. There is a movement, gaining strength, of advocating not just outdoor play but slightly more risky play, such as running up, not down, a slide or climbing trees. Activities of yore. Dr. Mariana Brussoni led a study in British Columbia that showed risky outdoor play promoted health, but also creativity, social skills and resilience in youth.
We have the doctor’s diagnosis. Now, the summation of a remedy:
“You’ve got to eat well, move well, sleep well and avoid toxins. It’s as simple as that,” Tremblay says. “We can make it as complicated and as sexy as we want. Sell supplements and fancy gadgets or whatever, but the basics always rise to the top.”
Two weeks ago, Tremblay delivered the keynote closing address at the 2017 Canadian Parks conference in honour of Canada’s sesquicentennial celebrations. He was struck by the irony presented to him, marking an active, glorious past during this period of inertia.
“As we reflect back on 150 years, we have a heritage as frontiers people — nature and the outdoors are almost synonymous with what it was like to be Canadian, whether it’s canoeing across a lake or snowshoeing through a forest,” Tremblay says.
“And the great outdoors is still there. We are the second-biggest country in the world, probably the most beautiful, and physical activity opportunities are endless.”
“Scientifically the fitness of our nation has declined. We’ve demonstrated quite recently that aerobic fitness in children around the world has declined, in a systematic way across the last several decades.” — Dr. Mark Tremblay