Reversing the Trends Towards Greater Active School Travel George Mammen University of Toronto January 14, 2016

Presentation Overview  Why is AST important?  What are common barriers to AST?  What are some strategies Withrow can use to increase AST?

Setting the Scene Rates of physical activity among children are alarmingly low:  ~ 93% of Canadian children do not meet the physical activity guidelines  Children spend on average 9 hours a day in sedentary behaviour  Higher risk of developing illness/diseases during childhood and adulthood

Why AST? Helps meet PA guidelines Physical Benefits Lower weightMore fit

Why AST? Mental Health benefits Greater Independent Mobility Develop emotional attachments Increased concentrationReduced stress Psychosocial benefits Develop navigation and traffic safety skills Develop responsibility and decision making skills

Why AST? Environmental benefits Decreases congestionDecreases pollution

Declining Trends in AST In Toronto, between , AST has declined by 10% in year olds

Why has AST declined? Change in physical environments Culture of car use

Why has AST declined? Change in family roles Culture of convenience

Why has AST declined? Impact of Technology  Instantaneous news dissemination (e.g, twitter)  Exposure of media have changed how a child is perceived because of the panic it creates  Unfortunate events have always occurred Culture of fear

Why has AST declined? Change in child-rearing & parenting practices More controlled and supervised (e.g., decrease in independent mobility) “The controlling nature has become so contagious in our prevailing society that parents have admitted that they impose restrictions to avoid the judgments from other parents and carrying the stigma of a ‘bad parent.’ Thus, children are increasingly perceived as being too naive, irresponsible, and immature to recognize potential dangerous situations, and are totally dependent upon supervision. As Buliung and colleagues (2015) note, contemporary parents often fail to recognize that the perceived fear and increased supervision may be ‘infantilizing’ children, which undermines children’s social, emotional and physical development and poses a great threat to their future” Aversion to risk

Risky???

 We live in a culture of car use, convenience and fear that has transformed over generations What do we about this?  It will take time….but we are on the cusp of change  Increasing attention on active travel

What can the school-community do to increase AST? Most applied intervention in Canada is School Travel Planning (STP) A school-specific intervention that involves a STP committee composed of school and community-level stakeholders to help assess, document, and intervene on AST barriers by means of a ‘school travel plan’

STP Facilitator Public Health Police Officers School Boards/ Principals Municipal Planners Traffic Engineers Students/ teachers Parents

The STP Process  Committee collects baseline assessments  Committee meets  School specific objectives & strategies are developed

Examples of implemented strategies

…But does it work?  YES!  AST can increase between 1-23% (classroom survey) after 1-year of implementation  17% (~1000 families) reported shifting travel modes from driving to AST (parent survey)  STP is meant for school more in urban locations

“It was beautiful to see the diversity around the table, and it created this nice little friendship between different sectors, and I think that’s what we need this day and age to help improve physical activity” (STP Facilitator) “Just talking about it [AST] at the assembly, it really spoke to the children because my kid came home and told me facts about walking. Even though I wasn’t there, I knew it was effective because kids were talking about it” (Parent) “Hearing from students themselves contributed to success. Like during the walkabout, we brought students along with us and we asked them to walk the route they take. So when the city council, city transportation staff and police heard about that, and when they see that with their own eyes, they thought that these were some major issues that we do need to address… so having them [students] there just opens up everyone’s eyes” (Principal) “They got to see how we walked to and from school. It's a good thing because we showed the bad things we don’t like passing through when walking to school, and maybe like we can inform the government so the government can fix it and make it a cleaner place when walking” (Grade 4 student)

How to get involved with STP?

George Mammen