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Where did ParticipAction go?
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by Diane Forbes, DC
I truly miss Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod. On a sunny Sunday, whiling away the afternoon, watching golf and snoozing in my armchair, who would appear but these two, cheerful and full of energy pushing me to get up and go outside. ParticipAction was the message, and the daily amount of exercise suggested was a mere fifteen minutes. Today, Participation, the governmental program to engage Canadians to live more healthy lives has been over for several years. Even school boards are cutting back on the physical education programs for all age groups. Promotion of physical activity has been pushed out of the public domain and into the private. Lots of kids participate in local organized sports like soccer, baseball and rugby, but for may children these are not options, and they often go without. Sports funding for elite athletes is also at a low point as was pointed out by media after Canada's showing at the Sydney Olympics. Many of our best athletes live below the poverty line, while trying to maintain optimal levels of fitness! It all seems counterintuitive to me. Physical activity is at the core of good health. It helps to maintain a preferred body mass ratio (i.e. muscle to fat ratio). It keeps the heart and lungs at functioning levels that can respond to sudden changes in need. It staves off loss of bone mass. It has even been linked to reduction in the rates of incidence of some cancers. As individuals interested in maintaining good health, we have to get regular physical exercise, and I am sorry to say that physical labour is not exercise. Exercise contains three main components, strength training, aerobic conditioning and stretching. In order to meet out exercise requirements all we really need is to get 15 minutes (n average) of these activities, daily, each week. Here is where creativity comes in. We could to five minutes of each, every day, or we could do 15 minutes of each on subsequent days, we could use a rotating schedule of any two on any given day. You get the picture. It really doesn't sound like much that way does it. Now it is true that it adds up to a total of 105 minutes, or an hour and three quarters per week. And it is tempting to get it all done in one day, as does the weekend warrior. But the benefits of daily activity are actually larger than those of the weekend warrior, and the risk of injury from overdoing it much smaller. In choosing our physical activities we need to assess our interests, the availability of facilities, and our time constraints. There is no point in saying that we are going to join a masters swim program, if the group meets daily at 6:00 am, and we work a shift that means missing half of the practices. Wouldn't it be better to get a pool schedule, swim on days where there are convenient times relative to our schedule and go for a walk, or have a stretch at home on the other days. Think about it as you plan you new years resolutions this December, and in January, lets all put the Action back in Participation. |
The Columbia Journal P.O. Box 2633 MPO, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6B 3W8 Phone: 604-266-6552 Fax: 604-267-3342 Web: www.columbiajournal.ca E-mail: cjournal@axion.net |