"Inside the Playspace" Playground Blog

Recommendations for increasing physical activity in the early years

Policy-makers
Invest in active living for children under five; ensure childcare policies mandate daily physical activity and adequately resource staff; target caregivers with incentives and messaging to get kids active and be active with them.

Public Health & Healthcare Professionals
Promote physical activity, active play, and reduced screen time as part of early years support programs for families.

Parents
Keep TVs out of bedrooms, institute screen time limits, and create opportunities for active outdoor play for kids and as a family.

Early Childhood Educators & Schools
Train and resource staff; offer a minimum of 90 minutes of daily active play time, indoors and outdoors, structured and unstructured.

Visit Active Playground Equipment to assist you in creating a playground area to encourage physical activity.

Active Healthy Kids Canada influences thinking and action among issue stakeholders to help them build better programs, campaigns and policies in order to increase physical activity among children and youth.

Each year Active Healthy Kids Canada produces an annual ‘Report Card‘ on research they complete throughout the year.

Here are some quick facts and discoveries that are very interesting.

»» The National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) indicates that only 36% of 2-3-year-olds and 44% of 4-5-year olds
regularly engage in unorganized sport and physical activity each week.

»» A survey of Edmonton parents indicates that only 42% of preschoolers get 90 minutes of physical activity per day.

»» In childcare centre settings, one US study shows that 89% of children’s time is spent being sedentary. Whatever the setting, children under five require adequate unstructured play and time outdoors for physical, cognitive and emotional development.

In 1971, the average age at which children began to watch TV was 4 years; today, it is 5 months:

»» More than 90% of kids begin watching TV before the age of two, despite recommendations that screen time should be zero for
children under two, and limited to 1 hour for kids 2-5.

»» The NLSCY indicates that 27% of those aged 2-3 and 22% of those aged 4-5 are watching more than 2 hours of TV per day. Overweight and obesity in Canadians under six is rising. Two regional reports tell us the prevalence of obesity in those aged 2-5 years is
between 8-11%.3,4 National data show that 15.2% of 2-5-year-olds are overweight and 6.3% are obese. This reality should be high on public health agendas given that:

»» Obesity in infancy persists through the preschool years.

»» Children who become obese before the age of six are likely to be obese later in childhood.

»» Obese children have a 25-50% increased risk of being obese as adults.

»» It is estimated that overweight 2-5-year-olds are four times as likely to be overweight as adults.

View the whole Report Card here.

To help get kids Active! Visit our website for unique playground equipment, and playspace ideas.

Here’s a very interesting article we found in USA Today on the growing popularity of natural playgrounds.

View our Natural Play Concepts Here, and read the article below:

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald Special for, USA TODAY

BOSTON — The playground of the future is beginning to take shape — and it looks a lot like the backyard of the past.

Designers of children’s play spaces are increasingly looking beyond slides, jungle gyms and other plastic-coated structures in their quest to create fun, safe, healthy environments. As a result, kids are running outside and discovering play areas dotted with old standbys: sand, water, boulders, hills and logs.

“This is an emerging national trend of some significance,” says Richard Dolesh, chief of public policy for the National Recreation and Parks Association. “Parents and other adults want natural opportunities for kids … The question is: how do you ensure safety with the inherent challenges that nature brings?”

Natural play spaces, as they’re called, are becoming more common as municipalities, schools and child care centers seek sustainable ways to invest in new or aging playgrounds. Seattle is adding at least six natural play spaces to existing city parks. Boston-area institutions have at least four in the works. Similar projects are either underway or recently completed in Phoenix, Chicago, New York and Auburn, Ala.

Visit Active Playground Equipment Natural Play for natural playground concepts.