Ottawa Public Health wants to lower childhood obesity rates by increasing the number of children who walk, bike and use other active means to get to school. But an important step to accomplishing that goal will be making Ottawa’s streets safer for it youngest commuters, according to the city’s medical officer of health.
OPH chief Dr. Isra Levy presented a report about the initiative to the Ottawa Board of Health earlier this month.
The city’s health-promotion agency has been working for the past few years to increase the number of children who use what is called “active transportation,” including commuting on foot, non-motorized wheel chairs and bikes, to get to school.
Now they say, Ottawa’s streets need to be safer. Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes says improved safety is necessary to increase child foot traffic.
“(Children in Centretown) have many heavily travelled roads that they need to cross and that’s a problem,” says Holmes. “Until we get our roads safer for pedestrians, we are going to have a hard time getting children to walk to school.”
This is an important step to encourage students to build healthy habits, says Marie-Claude Turcotte, a spokesperson for active transportation at health unit.
Only 22 per cent of Ottawa students in Grades 7 to 12 meet the recommended standard of 60 minutes of physical activity per day, according to the OPH report.
Increasing physical activity reduces children’s risks of chronic disease and obesity and has been shown to improve academic performance, concentration and behaviour problems, says Turcotte.
The health unit now wants to develop active transportation plans in all Ottawa elementary schools over the course of the current school year.
Turcotte says nurses are already in all Ottawa elementary schools to assess each location’s needs. These nurses are expected to suggest possible traffic safety improvements.
While traffic safety issues do vary across the city, the health unit says increasing the driver awareness of vulnerable road users is a key component to promoting more cycling and walking by students. This can be done through public awareness, signage, and traffic calming, the report states.
Alice Donachey, principal of Centretown’s Cambridge Street Public School, says about 80 per cent of students at her school use bikes, skateboards or scooters or walk to get to school. She says most of these students come from the blocks surrounding the school and walk with parents or older siblings.
Donachey points to walking group, as a way to create an active community and build awareness. Walking groups with names such as “walking school buses” are organized so that parents can take turns walking groups of children to school, instead of walking only their children every day.
These walking groups are a huge help to working parents who do not have time to walk their children to school every day, says Turcotte.
About 56 per cent of Ottawa students are eligible for school buses. The public health organization’s strategies will focus on the remaining 44 per cent of children who are deemed to live close enough to their schools to commute in an active way.
The health unit is also developing initiatives for those students who take school buses, such as before and afterschool walking clubs. says Turcotte.