ParticipAction warns inactivity is leading to sleepless nights for Canadian children.
The 2016 report card finds 31 per cent of school aged kids are sleep-deprived. It states that children are sleeping 30 to 60 minutes less a night.
Experts say activity and sleep are both important.
“This is not very good” says Dr. Jean-Phillippe Chaput from the Pediatrics department at uOttawa, “and it has been the same for the past 10 years so there are a lot of things that we need to improve. At least not we know what we need to do, but those figures have not changed much over the past few years.”
ParticipAction has created new guidelines that outline what a healthy 24 hour period should look like for children and youth.
These guidelines include at least 50 minutes of vigorous physical activity a day, limiting sitting for extended periods and between eight and 11 hours of sleep a night for kids between 5 and 17.
