Although Canadians have increased their activity levels over the past 20 years, we're still not doing enough to stay fit. Women and low-income Canadians are falling behind.

The good news is Canadians aged 18 and over are making an effort. Compared to 1981, twice as many people are getting the equivalent of one hour of exercise daily.

The percentage of people getting that amount of excercise rose from 20 per cent in 1981 to 41 per cent in 2000. "The numbers are telling us that Canadians are becoming more active in their leisure time," said Cora Craig of the Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute in Ottawa.

Cora Craig
Cora Craig

In spite of spending more time walking, cycling and working out, Canadians are also getting fatter. Although they're more active during leisure time, much of the physical work has been taken out of daily life.

Activities like riding the escalator instead of climbing the stairs, or driving to work, the market and even the gym rob people of the chance to burn calories.

Craig says the small changes or "nickel and dime physical activities" like taking the stairs add up, since Canadians have been doing less of it since the study began.




The same is true for Americans. An eight-month study published in Monday's issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine found moderate amounts of exercise such as walking just less than nine kilometres per week promotes weight loss in non-dieters.

The U.S. researchers looked at what happened when 120 sedentary, overweight men and women aged 40 to 65 were randomly assigned to do various amounts and intensities of exercise.

Cris Slentz of Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C., concluded that, without dieting, most overweight people can reverse the calorie imbalance by walking 30 minutes a day.

"The problem is that we're not doing enough leisure time activity to offset that decrease in the total daily activity that we're experiencing," said John Spence, an assistant professor of physical education at the University of Alberta.

Canadian fitness experts say it takes from 20 minutes to an hour a day, whether on a stairmaster or the stairs, to make a difference over time.