Activate Aurora challenges residents to make town Canada's most active community

YorkRegion.com
Sept. 18, 2016
Teresa Latchford

Activate Aurora has officially launched its quest to make the town Canada’s most active community.

Ron Weese, Activate Aurora chair, announced the race is on to get every resident to get off the couch and step it up to help the meet the goal by 2020. He made the declaration in front of a full house at the Aurora Family Leisure Complex during the project’s official launch event on Sept. 18.

“Childhood obesity, Type-2 diabetes and the negative physical, emotional and social outcomes that follow are currently one of our most pressing health problems,” he said. “So significant are these and problems related to inactivity and poor diet, that Statistics Canada projects for the first time in Canada’s history, children born today will have a shorter lifespan than their parents.”

A communication and education campaign will be one of the first initiatives to be rolled out under the Activate Aurora project, followed by programs targeting and encouraging positive behavioural changes at home, in schools and in the community as a whole.

This will include lobbying local government to ban tobacco product sales and to encourage a tax on high sugar beverages as well as removing vending machines from town-owned facilities to start, said Weese.

Challenges will motivate people to get involved including beating NASA to Mars. Weese held up a Marvin the Martian action figure and told the audience Activate Aurora will soon be issuing a challenge to residents to log their daily steps and see if the town can walk to Mars before NASA gets there.

What makes the project so unique is the collaboration within the community.

“You usually see one group taking on a problem but we all have to be part of the solution in order to be successful,” he added. “Much like the recycling program we have today, everyone needs to get behind it for it to work.”

In 2014, Sport Aurora brought together a group of 40 community leaders to discuss ways to combat the increasing sedentary lifestyles that lead to childhood obesity,  diabetes as well as cardiovascular and hypokinetic diseases. In 2015, Aurora declared it the year of sport and Mayor Geoff Dawe struck the Mayor’s Task Force on Physical Activity, setting the stage for Sport Aurora and its partners to forge ahead to increase the physical literacy and well-being of everyone in the community.

With funding from a Royal Bank of Canada grant, a pilot program was created and now the Ontario Trillium Foundation has provided a three-year grant worth $749,500 to help get the project off the ground.

“Aurora has been an early leader in Ontario and the Activate Aurora Campaign takes the community to a higher level,” Canadian Sport for Life Society founder Richard Way said. “With this initiative you will not improve the community but you will lead change in this province and throughout Canada.”

Dawe set a challenge to every other municipality in York Region and other Canadian communities to step it up while telling residents every extra step taken brings the town closer to its collective goal.

The three-year Activate Aurora campaign involving both York Region school boards, the town, York Region Public Health, Sport Aurora, Seneca College, Southlake Regional Health Centre, Aurora Seniors Association and other community organizations aims to help every citizen in Aurora become more active and gain a better quality of life.

The launch, which was emceed by Canadian sportscaster James Duthie, included words of encouragement from local dignitaries, York Region Public Health and a video message from Rick Hansen.

Did you know?

• This generation’s children are expected to live five years less than their parents.
• Only 9 per cent of 5 to 17 year olds get the recommended 60 minutes of heart-pumping activity they need each day.
• Children ages one to four need 180 minutes of physical activity a day.
• Children and youth are spending an average of 7.4 hours a day staring at screens rather than being active.
• 52 per cent of people report they are active enough when less than 4 per cent actually are.
• Elementary school children should be taking 15,000 steps per day and adults 10,000 to meet recommended standards.
• The average intake of sugar per day is 22 teaspoons when the recommended amount is only 6 tsp a day with the average Canadian consuming close to 105 lbs. of sugar per year.
• The average soft drink contains 9 tsp of sugar, the average serving of cereal 2 tsp and a glass of orange juice 5 tsp.

SIDEBAR

Get involved:

• Register to step it up at activateaurora.com and get tips on how to get active.
• Invite friends and family to get engaged.
• Keep track of your progress by logging your data online from any fitness tracker you own or simply keep track by providing your height, weight and a few other details.