Dropped gym classes linked to obesity surge
A survey's results prompts researchers to urge mandatory high school phys ed.
By MATTHEW CHUNG, CP
TORONTO -- Ontario should consider changes to its high school physical education program, researchers said yesterday, after finding most students are dropping gym classes, raising fears of obesity in teens.
Researchers from the University of Toronto and the University of Guelph have found fewer than half of Ontario high school students are fitting basketball and floor hockey into their timetables after Grade 9.
Participation in physical education dropped to 50 per cent in Grade 10 from 98 per cent in Grade 9, when it is mandatory. In Grades 11 and 12, the numbers fell even farther to 43 and 36 per cent respectively.
"It should be a wake-up call to the government and also to school boards and parents," said Kenneth Allison, director of physical activity research at the U of T.
"The opportunities and especially the participation by secondary schools in physical activity is lower than it should be."
The study's co-author, John Dwyer, an associate professor at Guelph's department of family relations and applied nutrition, called the lack of student participation in exercise at school an alarming trend of inactivity among Canadian youth.
"Typically, it's recommended that adolescents should be getting at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity daily," said Dwyer. "If kids aren't getting it at school, they are physically inactive."
Over the last 25 years, obesity rates have more than tripled for Canadian children between the ages of 12 and 17. Obesity increases the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes.
Dwyer said youth who are inactive at school are unlikely to exercise elsewhere.
Both researchers suggested that requiring students to take more than one year of gym in high school could help.
"If there were policies that indicated students would need to take more than one credit of physical education during high school, participation would increase," said Allison.
The study also found only about 25 per cent of students took part in inter-school sports, although almost all of the 474 schools surveyed offered those programs. Fifteen per cent of students joined intramural programs.
The new findings show a dramatic drop compared to a previous study on participation in physical education conducted in 1998. At that time, about 63 per cent of Grade 10 students took gym classes and about 29 per cent took part in intramural sports.
Students say there's no space for gym classes in a timetable geared toward requirements for entrance to post-secondary schools.
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