Physical Activity for Life

Question 1

Physical fitness

Answer 1

The ability to respond to routine physical demands with enough reserve energy to cope with a sudden challenge.
Consider yourself fit if you meet your daily energy needs, can handle unexpected extra demands, and are protecting yourself against potential health problems.

Question 2

Exercise

Answer 2

Physical activity that you plan, structure, and repeat for the purpose of conditioning your body.
Used to improve health and maintain fitness.

Question 3

Five Health-Related Components of Physical Fitness

Answer 3

Cardiorespiratory fitness
Muscular strength
Muscular endurance
Flexibility
Body composition
*muscular strength and endurance combine to be muscular fitness

Question 4

Cardiorespiratory Fitness

Answer 4

The ability of the heart to pump blood through the body efficiently so a person can sustain prolonged rhythmic activity.
Aerobic exercise is essential in achieving cardiorespiratory fitness.

Question 5

Aerobic Exercise

Answer 5

Any activity in which sufficient or excess oxygen is continually supplied to the body.

Question 6

Measuring Cardiorespiratory Fitness

Answer 6

VO2 max refers to the maximum amount of oxygen that an individual is able to use during intense or maximal exercise.
Measured in mL of oxygen used in one minute per kg of body weight.
The more oxygen you can produce during high-level exercise, the more energy you can produce.
Average for a sedentary individual = 35 ml/kg/min.

Question 7

Muscular Fitness

Answer 7

Comprised muscular strength and muscular endurance.
Both are equally important.

Question 8

Muscular Strength

Answer 8

Force within muscles.
Measured by the absolute maximum weight a person can lift, push, or press in one effort.
Important for keeping the skeleton in proper alignment, improved posture, prevention of back and leg aches, everyday lifting, and enhanced athletic performance.
Muscle mass increased when muscle strength increases, leading to a healthier body composition and increased metabolic rate.

Question 9

Muscular Endurance

Answer 9

The ability to perform repeated muscular effort.
Measured by counting how many times a person can lift, push or press a given weight.
Important for posture, everyday movement, athletics and sports.

Question 10

Flexibility

Answer 10

Is the range of motion around a specific joint.
Depends on numerous factors including age, sex, posture, musculature, body fat.
Flexibility in children increased until adolescence, before a gradual loss of joint mobility begins and continues throughout adulthood.
Muscles and connective tissue shorten and tighten since they are not used through their full range of motion.

Question 11

Body Composition

Answer 11

The amount of fat (essential and stored fat) and lean tissue (bone, muscle, organs, water in the body).
It is considered, proportionately, such that a high proportion of body fat has serious health implications including increased incidence of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, gall bladder problems, back and joint problems, and some forms of cancer.

Question 12

Physical Activity and Athletic Performance

Answer 12

Skill-related fitness can help people enjoy a higher level of success in lifetime sport.

Question 13

Sport

Answer 13

Leisure-time physical activities that are planned, structured, and competitive.

Question 14

Agility

Answer 14

The ability to change your body position and direction quickly and efficiently.
Important in many sports including (but not limited to) basketball, football, racquetball, tennis, hockey, etc.
Agility tests typically include running forward and backward, then performing crossover steps.

Question 15

Balance

Answer 15

The body’s ability to maintain proper equilibrium.
Essential in day-to-day life, as well as sports like gymnastics and skiing.
Can be assessed/increased using a stork stand test in which you stand on one foot and place your other foot on the inside of the supporting knee, while holding yourself steady as long as possible without moving

Question 16

Coordination

Answer 16

The integration of the nervous and muscular systems, which allows for harmonious body movements.
Important for skills in sports that demand throwing, catching, and hitting.
Can be difficult to test, but one example is the finger to nose test.

Question 17

Power

Answer 17

Is the ability to produce maximum force in the shortest time.
Two components include speed and force.
Together speed and force allow a person to jump, spike, throw, or hit with force.
Power is necessary for everyday activities, like climbing stairs, lifting object, and preventing falls.
Not a lot of great options to test power as a whole.

Question 18

Speed

Answer 18

The ability to propel the body or a part of the body rapidly from one point to another

Question 19

Force

Answer 19

An influence that causes movement of a body often described as pushing or pulling.

Question 20

Why aren’t most/all Canadians active?

Answer 20

It’s very important that people engage in regular physical activity so many reasons, but most Canadians don’t.
This is because lack of physical literacy and social determinants of health.

Question 21

Physical Literacy

Answer 21

The motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge, and understanding to value and take responsibility for engagement in physical activities for life.
Commonly used in recreation, fitness, sport, education, and public agency professionals.
Used to explain and promote the connection between learning about and adopting daily physical activity as related to health, fitness, and athletic performance and sport.
Goal of enhancing physical activity is to develop children’s ability, competence, confidence and motivation to keep moving and trying new activities throughout their lifetimes.
Typically involves learning basic movement patterns that can build and develop, making the child more capable and willing to be active.
Examples include skipping, jumping, running, throwing, catching, batting, dribbling balls, balancing activities, etc.
If a child becomes competent at these basic skills/movements, they will become more confident in doing them and other new skills going forward, and in turn will be motivated to keep performing them, with the confidence and motivation to try new skills/movements including sports.

Question 22

Steps to Physical Literacy Intervention

Answer 22

Step 1: Funding
Step 2: Getting Everything in Place
Step 3: Roll-out Program
Step 4: End of the Program
Step 5: Putting it all Together
Step 6: Evaluating the Intervention

Question 23

Step 1: Funding

Answer 23

Usually a group of researchers will develop what is called a grant application which often includes upwards of 100’s of pages focussed on background literature, methodologies, specific timelines, objectives/goals, assessment, sustainability in the long-run, estimate of amount of funding needed.
Some organizations include Public Health Agency of Canada, and ParticipACTION.
There are numerous other organizations and agencies that support research on and programs in physical activity/literacy.
Some are local, some provincial, some national.
Must seek out the most appropriate organization given the goals of your program.

Question 24

Step 2: Getting Everything in Place

Answer 24

All institutions will have an ethics process, in which you’ll need to submit an application and have your program approved by the ethics board at your institution.
This can be a rigorous process with key inclusions being consent form, how you’ll collect data, how you’ll store data, how you’ll evaluate data, what your ultimate plans with the data are.
In the grant application, you would have identified who you hope will participate in your program and now must recruit participants.
Key considerations are age, gender, recruitment materials, approaching school boards, and make the program compelling.

Question 25

Step 3: Roll-out the Program

Answer 25

Now it’s time to run your program.
How long will it be? What are the activities that will be involved? How are you collecting data? Is the data collected at one point, multiple points, why?

Question 26

Step 4: End of the Program

Answer 26

Now you’ve collected all of the data and it’s time to determine if your program worked.
Key considerations include are physical activity levels higher, are children more confident, comeptent, and motivated to engage in basic movement skills, physical activity, and sports, how many people participated, and did you experience significant dropout of participants from start to finish?
Analyzing the data and assessing whether your program worked, ensuring to align with your original goals and objectives of what you hoped would happen.

Question 27

Step 5: Putting it all Together

Answer 27

Interpret findings and what it all means.
Was the program a success?
What do your findings/results mean?
Is it sustainable and why?
Is it appropriate for upscaling to more people?

Question 28

Step 6: Evaluating the Intervention

Answer 28

Reflect on the intervention.
What went well? What were successes/highlights?
Were there barriers/challenges? How were they overcame, how could they potentially be overcome?
What would you do differently next time?

Question 29

The Social Determinants of Health

Answer 29

The most important factors that influence one’s health isn’t the healthcare they have but the living conditions they experience.
Can help explain the wide health inequalities that exist in Canada.

Question 30

Income and Income Distribution

Answer 30

Level of income shapes overall living conditions that affect physiological and psychological functioning, and the take-up of health-related behaviours such as quality of diet, extent of physical activity, tobacco use, and excessive alcohol use.
How health is related to actual income a family/individual receives.
How income is distributed across the population and how this distribution is related to the overall health of the population.
Strong link between income and health.
Arguably the most important determinant of health.
Income affects overall living conditions, housing, quality of diet, education, extent of physical activity, tobacco use, and excessive alcohol use.
Life expectancy and health-adjusted life expectancy are consistently lower and infant mortality and unintentional injury mortality were consistently higher among those living in lower-income areas, with lower educational attainment, and with greater material and social deprivation.
Similar socioeconomic gradients by income, education, and material and social deprivation are seen for suicide mortality.

Question 31

The Materialist Hypothesis

Answer 31

One hypothesis used to explain the association between income and health at the individual level.
Individuals with lower income are less likely to have good health than individuals with higher income because they lack material resources that are conducive to good health.

Question 32

Psychosocial Hypothesis

Answer 32

One hypothesis used to explain the association between income and health at the individual level.
Individuals with less incomes often have worse health than individuals with higher income due to negative upward social comparisons which can result in frustration, shame, stress, and subsequently ill health.

Question 33

Income Inequality

Answer 33

Income of Canadians rose on average by 13.5%, but the growth was quite uneven as the income of the bottom 90% increased by 2 percentage points and the top 10% increased by more than 75% and the top 0.01% by 160%.
The hollowing out of the middle class/erosion of the middle class implies polarization in the distribution of economic well-being, but it also raises issues of basic fairness, declining economic opportunity and broader social cohesion.
Job loss in highly paid middle-skilled occupations in manufacturing has increased the labour supply for low-skill sales and services occupations.
Overall, poverty rates of vulnerable groups have trended downward over time, as has been the case for the overall population.
Vulnerable groups remain more likely to fall into poverty and to stay poor: Indigenous persons living off-reserve, recent immigrants, lone parents, persons with disabilities, and unattached persons ages 45-64 living on their own.
They are helped most by strong economic conditions and better job prospects.
Nonvulnerable individuals who fell into poverty did so only temporarily, individuals belonging to vulnerable groups were much less likely to escape from poverty, especially following an economic downturn.
Poverty is tricky to measure, high level of turnover/mobility.

Question 34

What does income inequality, income distribution, and health all mean?

Answer 34

Income inequality has increased in Canada, to an important extent because of the dramatic increases in income among top earners over the past 30 years. In contrast, incomes have grown very little among those in the middle and at the bottom of the distribution.
Perhaps most important, income mobility across the distribution has declined, and there is every reason to believe that intergenerational mobility is also deteriorating.
-middle class and low income families face not only a lack of progress in income for themselves, but also a genuine worry that their children will not be able to improve their lot.
As the top 1% gradually pulls farther away from everyone else in terms of income, they will have a tendency to form a separate society within the broader society.
-this means that they could also form a different set of preferences.
-and with their increased relative income comes an increased ability to influence policy through lobbying and other means.

Question 35

How to fix income and income distribution…

Answer 35

Increase minimum wage to a living wage and boost social assistance levels for those unable to work.
Reduce inequalities in income and wealth through progressive taxation, and use these revenues to provide universal programs and services.
More unionized workplaces which sets limits on extreme profit-making that comes at the expense of employees’ health and well-being.

Question 36

Education

Answer 36

People with higher education tend to be healthier than those with lower educational attainment.
Tied to other determinants of health, ability to navigate changes in the Canadian employment market, and understanding of how one can promote one’s health.
Canada relatively good in terms of education.
-immigrant children and children of immigrants perform as well as children in Canada to Canadian-born parents.
-53% of the population have post-secondary education.

Question 37

Three pathways in which education leads to better health…

Answer 37

1) Related to other determinants of health. Ie. income, employment, working conditions.
2) Greater capacity to benefit from training opportunities, facilitates engagement in political processes. Better understanding of the world and more able to see and influence societal factors that shape their own health.
3) Increases overall literacy and understanding of how one can promote one’s own health through individual action.

Question 38

What can we do better in education in Canada?

Answer 38

Free or reduced tuition for post-secondary education.
-countries that offer this have weaker links between family background and education attainment.
Elected representatives must commit to adequately funding the Canadian education system.
Universal high-quality childcare.

Question 39

Employment and Working Conditions

Answer 39

Employment provides income, sense of identity, and day-to-day structure.
Includes employment security, physical conditions at work, work pace and stress, working hours, opportunities for self-expression, and individual development at work.
Unemployment provides material and social deprivation, psychological stress, adoption of health-threatening coping behaviours, and physical/mental health problems.
Job insecurity leads to exhaustion/burnout, physical/psychological issues, poor self-rated health, and somatic complaints.
-increasing in Canada
-less than 2/3 of Canadians have a regular or permanent full-time job.
-Canada 35th of 36 on employment protection index for temporary workers.
Key dimensions of the workplace related to health include job strain, effort-reward imbalance, organization justice, work hours, status inconsistency, and precarious work.
Only 30% of Canadians had jobs with positive scores on these 6 dimensions.
An average of 4 work-related deaths per working day in Canada.

Question 40

Job Strain

Answer 40

When people’s autonomy over their work and ability to use their skills are low, while their psychological demands are high

Question 41

Effort-reward Imbalance

Answer 41

When efforts are perceived to be higher than rewards, leads to emotional distress

Question 42

Organization Justice

Answer 42

Extent to which people believe that their supervisor considers their viewpoints, shares information concerning decision making, and treats individuals fairly.

Question 43

Work Hours

Answer 43

Too many or too few related to health problems.

Question 44

Status Inconsistency

Answer 44

Education level higher than skills required for occupation.

Question 45

Precarious Work

Answer 45

Instability, lack of protection, etc.

Question 46

How to fix issues with employment, working conditions, and health?

Answer 46

Legal mandates to provide basic standards of employment and work for everyone.
Reduction of power inequalities between employers and employees through stronger legislation governing equal opportunity in hiring, pay, training, career advancement (and also access to these for those unemployed).
Government policies to support Canadians’ working life to balance rewards and demands.
Focus on improving conditions in high-strain jobs by improving personal control and moderating work demands.

Question 47

Early Child Development

Answer 47

Early childhood experiences have strong immediate and longer lasting biological, psychological and social effects upon health.
Incorporates in utero and early exposure to parental risk behaviours.
Latency, pathway, and cumulative effects
Shaped by economic and social resources available to parents primarily through employment.
-childcare, public policies that support/benefit children.

Question 48

Latency Effects

Answer 48

How early childhood experiences predispose children to either good or poor health regardless of later life circumstances.
Ie. biological processes during pregnancy, early psychological experiences.

Question 49

Pathway effects

Answer 49

Children’s exposure to risk factors don’t immediate health effects, but later lead to situations that do have health consequences.
Ie. Child’s readiness to learn as they enter school eventually leads to lower educational attainment and ultimately can impact employment.

Question 50

Cumulative effects

Answer 50

The longer children live under material and social deprivation, the more adverse developmental and health outcomes.

Question 51

How to fix issues with early child development…

Answer 51

Affordable and quality childcare for all families.
Support and benefits through public policies.
Improved community quality of life, reduced social problems, improved Canadian economic performance.

Question 52

Food Insecurity

Answer 52

Food is a basic human need and an important determinant of human dignity.
Food insecure Canadians experience a variety of adverse health outcomes, lacking adequate nutritional intake.
Based on Household Food Insecurity (HFI)…
-marginal HFI = worrying about running out of food and/or limited food selection due to lack of money.
-moderate HFI = consuming food inadequate in either quality or quantity
-severe HFI = experiencing reduced food intake or disrupted eating.
12.7% of Canadians households experiences one of the above.
Associated with increased likelihood of chronic disease.
Long-term effects on a child’s physiological and psychological development.
Predicts reporting poor or fair health, rather than good/very good/excellent.
Almost always caused by lack of economic resources.

Question 53

How to fix food insecurity…

Answer 53

Increase minimum wages and social assistance to where adequate diet is affordable.
Assure that healthy foods are affordable.
Affordable housing and childcare, so families can afford adequate diet.
Facilitated mothers’ employment through job supports, making available affordable childcare, and providing employment training.

Question 54

Housing

Answer 54

Housing is an absolute necessity for living a healthy life and living in unsafe, unaffordable or insecure housing increases the risk of many health problems.
Housing quality an important consideration.
-overcrowding = transmission of respiratory and other illnesses
-high costs lead to less resources for other social determinants of health
-poor housing = stress, and unhealthy means of coping
-lead, mold, dampness, poor heating, draft, inadequate ventilation, vermin all lead to adverse health outcomes.
Lack of economic resources primary reason for housing problems and Canadian public policy that has reduced public spending on affordable housing.
Children living in poor quality housing have greater likelihood of poor health during childhood and eventual adulthood.
Canada in housing crisis
-rents and cost of living rising
Core Housing Need captures the essence of housing insecurity (a precursor to homelessness)
-affordability = household spends 30% or more of income on shelter
-suitability = housing inappropriate for size and composition of household
-adequacy = housing requires major repairs
12.7% of Canadians in core housing needs.
Homeless people experience much greater rate of physical/mental health problems and are at 8-10 greater risk of early death, with Canada being in a homelessness emergency state in many cities.
Lack of affordable rental accommodation and growth of part-time and precarious employment (low paying and insecure) lead to homelessness crisis.
Canada has one of the highest levels of low-paying jobs (22%) among Western nations.
Housing insecurity linked to income insecurity, which leads to illness and premature death.

Question 55

How to fix housing issues…

Answer 55

More explicit links between housing policy and comprehensive income programs (ie. job strategy), public health, and health services policy.
Boost access to social and affordable housing for low-income Canadians.
Government must increase funding for social housing programs targeted for low-income Canadians.

Question 56

Social Exclusion

Answer 56

Refers to specific groups being denied the opportunity to participate in Canadian life.
Socially excluded Canadians are more likely to be unemployed and earn lower wages.
Immigrants, indigenous Canadians, Canadians of colour, persons with disabilities, and women all particularly effected.
-creates living conditions that endanger health
-creates educational and social problems
-creates a sense of powerlessness, hopelessness, and depression

Question 57

Four aspects of social exclusion

Answer 57

1) Denial of participation in civil affairs
2) Denial of social goods - health care, education, housing, income security, lower incomes, less access to services
3) Exclusion from social production - lack of opportunity to participate and contribute to social and cultural activities
4) Economic exclusion - individuals cannot access economic resources and opportunities such as participation in paid world

Question 58

How to fix social exclusion…

Answer 58

Governments must revise laws and regulations that address growing precarious and low wage employment in Canada.
Governments must enforce laws that protect rights of minority groups (ie. employment rights, anti-discrimination).
Tax structure revisions to allow governments to provide greater benefits and supports to all Canadians (ie. affordable housing, childcare, pharmacare).

Question 59

Social Safety Net

Answer 59

Refers to a range of benefit programs and supports that protect citizens during various life changes that can affect their health
-supports offered to Canadians are well below those of most other wealthy nations
-normal life transitions
-unexpected life events that threaten health through increased economic insecurity, and provoke psychological stress
Becoming unable to work through unemployment/illness and family break-ups predict poverty.
Canadian protections/supports well below most other wealthy nations.
Should include EI, counselling, employment training, and community services.

Question 60

How to fix issues with social safety net…

Answer 60

Canadian decision-makers must re-evaluate whether minimizing government intervention is an ethical and sustainable approach to maintaining health, promoting social well-being, and increasing economic productivity.
Strong political and social movements need to pressure governments into creating public policy that will strengthen Canada’s social safety net.

Question 61

Health Services

Answer 61

A basic human right.
Purpose is to protect the health of citizens and spread health costs across the whole society.
Universal health care system particularly effective in protecting citizens with lower incomes who cannot afford private health care insurance.
Range of insured services varied among provinces and territories.
Canada’s health care system ranked 9th of 11 wealthy nations.
30% of Canadian doctors reported their patients often had difficulty paying for medications or out-of-pocket costs; 28% skipping dental check-ups.
50% of Canadians reported having to wait two hours or more for care in emergency rooms.
Above-average income Canadians more likely to attend regular check-ups and greater access to care; 3 times more likely to fill a prescription than low-income Canadians.

Question 62

How to fix issues with health services…

Answer 62

Direct attention to existing inequities in access to healthcare and identify barriers to health care.
Implement pharmacare program, increase public coverage of home care and nursing costs.
Resist involvement of for-proft companies in health care.
Dental care for low-income families.

Question 63

Disability

Answer 63

Typically viewed as medical rather than social.
Issue is whether society is willing to provide persons with disabilities with the supports and opportunities necessary to participate in Canadian life.
Very low levels of benefits to and integration of persons with disabilities in Canada, compared to other wealthy developed nations.
22.3% of Canadians report a disability.
People with disabilities less likely to be employed (59% vs 80%) and when employed, earn less.
-76% employment for those with mild disabilities
-31% with severe disabilities.
8.6% poverty rate for Canadians without disabilities, 23.2% for those with a disability

Question 64

How to fix issues with disability…

Answer 64

Focus on human rights-based approach, rather than framing it as social assistance.
Institute provincial/territorial policies that provide fully inclusive education systems.
Review social protection system to ensure rights-based response that promote the active citizenship, social inclusion, and community participation of persons with disabilities.
Instill public policies that guarantee the access of persons with disabilities to the support the need to live independently in their communities.

Question 65

Gender

Answer 65

Women in Canada are employed in lower paying occupations, earn less, work fewer hours (often due to childcare responsibilities), and experience more discrimination in the workplace than men.
Women experience more adverse social determinants of health, largely due to carrying more responsibilities for raising children and housework and systematic discrimination.
More long-term disability and chronic disease.
Lower pay, more discrimination, less full-time work.
-86% of men among senior managers
-68% of men among top executives
Single mothers are particularly at high risk of poverty.
However, men are also at risk for different ways…
-higher suicide rates (4 times)
-more prone to criminal behaviours (95% of the prison population) when young men experience disadvantage (ie. poverty, low education, unemployment)
-often rooted in unhealthy constructs of masculinity (ie. aggressive, self-reliance)

Question 66

How to fix issues with gender…

Answer 66

Enforce pay equity.
Reduce the most extreme forms of poverty and social exclusion.
-would reduce incarceration, homelessness, and severe substance use by men.
National affordable high-quality childcare program.
Create policies to make it easier for workplaces to achieve collective agreements through unionization, especially beneficial for Canadian women.

Question 67

Race

Answer 67

Racialized Canadians experience lower rates of income, higher rates of unemployment, and lower occupational status.
All of the above threaten their physical, mental, and social health, but also the overall health and well-being of Canadian society.
Racialized Canadian’s make up 22% of the population.
For Indigenous peoples in particular = degradation of ecosystems.
Black Canadians experience the most everyday discrimination in Canada (30.8%).

Question 68

Racism harms health in 3 major ways…

Answer 68

1) Economic and social deprivation.
2) Socially inflicted trauma
3) Inadequate or degrading medical care

Question 69

How to fix issues with racism…

Answer 69

Canadian institutions must recognize the existence of racism in Canada and develop awareness and education programs that outline the adverse effects of racism.
Governments must commit funding to enact and enforce anti-discrimination laws and regulations.
Governments must take an active role in improving living and working conditions, since people of colour are experiencing adverse living circumstances.