News Release/Media Advisory

                                                  For Immediate Release

                                                                                                                November 20, 2009

HAVE A BALL TOGETHER! FIGHT OBESITY IN PRESCHOOLERS

Toddlers and preschoolers at the Brooke Montessori Toddler School will be having fun and getting active as part of the provincial campaign Have a Ball Together! The Brooke Montessori Toddler School will be working with Public Health to organize a day of games and activities that deliver the Have a Ball Together messages: it’s fun and easy to be active with children; there are benefits to engaging children in unstructured active play; and less screen time means more time for children to be physically active. The event takes place beginning at 9:00 a.m., Thursday, November 26, at Brooke Montessori Toddler School, First United Church, 435 21^st Street West, Owen Sound.

Community partners across Grey and Bruce are participating in the provincial campaign, Have a Ball Together!, orchestrated by the Best Start Resource Centre. The goal of the campaign is to increase the amount of physical activity and decrease the amount screen time children participate in daily. Toddlers and preschoolers need at a minimum 90 minutes of physical activity each day and should not be sedentary for more than 60 minutes at a time (except when sleeping).

In Ontario, 28% of children are considered overweight or obese. According to Active Healthy Kids Canada, 87% of children and youth do not getting enough physical activity and most children are spending too much time in front of screens. This means our children are not reaping the benefits of being active and are not developing healthy lifelong habits

Physical activity does not need to be difficult or expensive. Ideas like taking walks in the park on a nice fall day or raking the leaves and jumping in them are great ways to get active. Simple items like a ball, hoola-hoop or even a small blanket are all items that are useable in everyday active play for children.

Community partners are encouraging young children to form healthy habits that will last a lifetime. Licensed daycare centers, Ontario Early Years Centres, Canadian Prenatal Nutrition Programs, Aboriginal Head Start and Public Health have received free resources to raise awareness about the importance of physical activity and to share ideas about simple ways to be active with the preschoolers. Children can take the information home so families can “Have a Ball Together!” Parents are encouraged to keep the ball rolling long after the campaign. “Our goal is to create a new generation of active kids and to keep them active long into adulthood”, said Sylvie Boulet, Consultant with the Best Start Resource Centre.  

To find out more, please contact the Grey Bruce Health Unit, 519-376-9420 or 1-800-263-3456 or visit http://www.beststart.org/haveaballtogether/index.html. To find out different public places for children to play, visit www.playbrucegrey.com.

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Attachments: Backgrounder: Have a ball together! Raising Healthy Kids is Child’s Play 

For more information:

Crystal Ferguson                                                         Judy Hill                    

Health Promoter                                                          Brook Montessori Toddler School Grey Bruce Health Unit                                      519-376-3447 

519-376-9420 or 1-800-263-3456, ext.1404

c.ferguson@publichealthgreybruce.on.ca

For further information on the provincial campaign contact:

Sylvie Boulet, DtP. /RD, MHSc.

Health Promotion Consultant

Best Start Resource Centre, Health Nexus

1-800-397-9567 ext. 2268

s.boulet@healthnexus.ca