A Statement on the Quiet Crisis
How Physical Inactivity is Undermining Canadians’ Health
A Grand and Essential Campaign. Continuing with work I performed previously as West Vancouver’s MP, I’m still passionate about disrupting Canada’s greatest, quiet crisis and I’m writing to see if you might share this passion. On behalf of the Canadian Health and Fitness Institute (“CHFI”), I’m inquiring if you or your organization might invest in Canadians’ physical, mental, and spiritual health by investing funds in our work.
The Need. CHFI seeks your help in our attempt to tackle the rising tide of sedentary behaviour. Canadians’ waning trend of physical activity may seem banal compared to headline-grabbing stories but it’s tied up with increased youth obesity; cardiovascular disease; diabetes; loneliness; and mental illness. As screen time escalates, less than 20% of our youth get even the minimum amount of exercise prescribed by Health Canada - 150 minutes per week. One third of Canadian youth are overweight or obese; that’s twice the amount of a generation ago.
In many cases, these malevolent trends are worse in marginalized groups, among Indigenous people, the poor, the homeless, and people whose mother tongues are not English or French. Mental illness is at an all-time high. A recent Stanford report suggested that 50% of people under 40 have serious mental illness episodes.
Pandemics Can Focus the Mind. The pandemic worsened these syndromes. People felt compelled to stay indoors. CHFI Co-Founder, Dr. Jack Taunton, who started sport medicine in Canada and founded the Vancouver Sun Run, pleads with Canadians to exercise in order to increase our immunity. But government messages were mixed, and many stayed at home. For some, the silence was deafening. Social interactions were replaced with loneliness. It will take years to understand the psychological scars we bear from society-wide solitude. Physical education has dwindled as a program in schools. In 1992, Canada mistakenly cancelled Health Canada’s Fitness Award Program. Doctors don’t learn much formally about fitness or nutrition in medical school. The economic consequences are massive, as Canadians spend between $6.8 billion and $25 billion in annual unnecessary sickness care costs.
What We’ve Learned. Our health system has forgotten about prevention, and focuses instead on prescription. Surgery and drugs have their place but we all know exercise is sometimes the best medicine. According to country-by- country comparisons among 49 countries, Canada ranked 12th overall for physical activity, 24th for sedentary behaviour, and a miserable 45th for active transportation. Enter CHFI’s innovative, effective plan to trigger measurable improvements en route to “Make Canada the Fittest Nation on Earth by 2030”.
Methodology. As you’ll note from our professional 3-minute video “Inspiring Health and Fitness - #LetsMoveCanada!” (chfi.fit - home page), our efforts date back to the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, when I represented most of the venues as Member of Parliament. Getting beyond the preoccupation with medals, it became apparent that the best legacy for Canadians would be a dramatic change in Canadian culture, to get people off the couch, to improve the quality of their lives, and to keep them out of hospital.
Growing Stronger Every Day. CHFI has successfully spearheaded several campaigns and initiatives that resonate with goals you may share. Notably, our "#LetsMoveCanada" campaigns have mobilized thousands of Canadians in every province and territory, culminating in a landmark engagement of over 400,000 hours of physical activity logged in 2023. We are also at the forefront of creating dialogue and promoting wellness through our educational initiatives, such as our podcast series and our continued support of Indigenous-led health and activity initiatives. Our ultimate goal is to stimulate the creation of a national hut system to get Canadians outdoors, on our trails, moving together, for the enhancement of physical, mental, and spiritual health. We’ll anchor the hut system with a National Adventure and Innovation Centre, which will teach the teachers, coach the coaches, and instruct the instructors.
You As A Supporter Will Not Be Alone. Partners in our project include the Government of Canada, the Indigenous Physical Activity and Cultural Circle, Strava, TELUS, Google Nonprofit, and Rotary. We’ve assembled an impressive array of Directors and Advisors and added the Governor General as our patron.
Contributions to Date. Our work has been volunteer-driven to produce effective, measurable improvement in physical, mental, and spiritual health. In our steady efforts to diversify revenue, we’ve raised over $500,000 in value-in-kind volunteer time and $346,000 in cash, pledges, and a Federal Grant.
Canada Needs You! To continue meaningful progress on “Making Canada the Fittest Nation on Earth by 2030,” we need sponsors and donors to step up over the next 15 months. A tax receipt is available for every donated dollar. Can we discuss what level of support would suit you and your organization?
Next Steps. My fellow 34 Board members and I are passionate about making a positive difference for our country, for generations to come. Please let us know if you’d like to meet in person; to organize a group informational gathering; to speak by phone; or to email back and forth. Together, we can “Make Canada the Fittest Nation on Earth”. Want to learn more? Go to CHFI.fit or LetsMoveCanada.com.
Yours sincerely,
John Weston
CHFI BN / Registration Number: 81287 7157 RR 0001
KEY STATISTICS AND FACTS
Between $6.8 billion and $25 billion in squandered health-care costs.
Less than 60% of young children 3-4 years of age are meeting national physical activity guidelines.
Levels of physical activity decrease by 7% per year among 10- to 19-year-olds.
Boys (52%) are twice as likely as girls (26%) to meet physical activity guidelines.
80% of 3- to 4-year-olds engage in more than one hour of screen-viewing per day.
Only 18% of 5- to 17-years-olds are staying below the two-hour recommendation for recreational screen-viewing per day.
75% of 5- to 17-year-olds meet national sleep recommendations.
83% of adults believe physical inactivity is a more serious health issue than tobacco and alcohol use.
Adults spend 25 hours per week on screens.
According to the World Health Organization, physical inactivity is the 4th leading risk factor for mortality. Approximately 3.2 million deaths and 32.1 million Disability-Adjusted Life Years each year are attributable to insufficient physical activity (WHO.int)
In the US, widespread loneliness poses health risks as deadly as smoking a dozen cigarettes daily, costing the health industry billions of dollars annually, according to the US Surgeon General, who has declared loneliness to be the latest public health epidemic (May 2023).
The problem is similarly dramatic in Canada (“Understanding the Factors Driving the Epidemic of Social Isolation and Loneliness among Older Canadians,” the National Institute on Ageing Dec 2023).
REFERENCES
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (2010). GLOBAL RECOMMENDATIONS ON PHYSICAL ACTIVITY FOR HEALTH. RETRIEVED FROM HTTPS://WWW.NCBI.NLM.NIH.GOV/BOOKS/NBK305049/
Janssen, I. (2012). Health care costs of physical inactivity in Canadian adults. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 37(4):803-806. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22667697
Conference Board of Canada (2014). Moving Ahead: The Economic Impact of Reducing Physical Inactivity and Sedentary Behaviour. Retrieved from https://www.conferenceboard.ca/e-library/abstract.aspx?did=6436
ROBERTS ET AL. (2019). MEETING THE 24-HOUR MOVEMENT GUIDELINES FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH. RETRIEVED FROM HTTPS://WWW150.STATCAN.GC.CA/N1/EN/PUB/82-003-X/2017010/ARTICLE/54875-ENG.PDF?ST=XLX-FQD6
ParticipACTION. (2018). 2018 ParticipACTION Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth. Retrieved from
Dumith et al. (2011). Physical activity change during adolescence: a systematic review and a pooled analysis. International Journal of Epidemiology, 40(3), 685–698. Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/40/3/685/744518
Statistics Canada. (2021). Canadian Health Measures Survey, Cycle 6 [2018 and 2019], custom tabulation. Retrieved from
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/82-003-X201900800001
ParticipACTION. (2018). ParticipACTION Pulse Report. Retrieved from
Government of Canada (2019). Canadian Chronic Disease Indicators (CCDI). Retrieved from
https://health-infobase.canada.ca/ccdi/
Chaput et al. (2017). Duration and quality of sleep among Canadians aged 18 to 79. Health Reports, catalogue no. 82-003-X. Retrieved from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/82-003-x/2017009/article/54857-eng.pdfA Statement on the Quiet Crisis: How Physical Inactivity is Undermining Canadians’ Health