After just four months, the TVOKids Million Ways to Move campaign has hit its goal of kids logging one million minutes of physical activity online.
TVOKids had hoped to reach that goal within one year, but after so much positive reaction and participation, they’ve decided to set a new goal of two million minutes.
“We launched the Million Ways to Move campaign as way to raise awareness about the importance of being active and asked kids and families across Ontario to help us reach one million minutes of moving… Not only did we hit our target we did it in record time,” says Pat Ellingson, creative head of TVOKids.
“For over a decade TVOKids has been promoting the benefits of a healthy lifestyle to kids across the province,” she says. “Our goal is to make it fun for kids to learn about being active and eating right; and to encourage them to develop healthy habits that they’ll carry into adulthood.”
In June, TVOKids launched the campaign, both on television and on its website, asking kids to log onto TVOKids.com to add their personal minutes of moving each day. As the children add their minutes to the grand total their names appear on the website.
“It’s not about exercise,” says Ellingson. “This is about moving and just being active. It’s about an active lifestyle.” Playing soccer is moving, walking to school is moving, going up and down stairs is moving, walking the dog is moving. This is about getting bodies moving in all the smaller ways that add up to healthier lifestyles, Ellingson says.
Once kids log onto the Million Ways to Move page on the TVOKids.com site, they can add their minutes and tell TVOKids exactly what they did to move.
The year-long campaign is TVOKids’ latest response to the growing problem of childhood obesity and diabetes as well as other health-related issues due to inactivity. Slightly more than 17 percent of Canadian children and youth are overweight, while 9 percent are obese, according to the Canadian Health Measures Survey, which was conducted between 2007 and 2009.
“This campaign is an extension of the TVOKids Healthy Minds, Healthy Bodies, decade-long campaign to help kids and families understand the value of being active,” Ellingson says. “The goal is to introduce kids to understanding the importance of developing these life habits and to carry them into adulthood.”
Marney Malabar, executive-in-charge of production of TVOKids’ afternoon program The Space, says the hosts of her program work hard to be role models in active living for the kids watching at home.
Meanwhile, she says any efforts focused on helping kids get more active have to keep all children in mind. “The fortunate kids are already in soccer and swimming and that will qualify,” she says, “but we’re hoping the campaign will help families to get in those ten minutes of walking to school and playing in the backyard for 20 minutes, too.”
This is not a contest, there is no real prize, she says. “This is about a life change,” she says. “And we don’t expect that million minutes to be hard to reach. And we’re going to just keep on going after we reach one million.”
The campaign extends through all of the TVOKids programming, including the morning TV block for younger kids, Gisèle’s Big Backyard. “We’re (shooting) the puppets doing different kinds of moving things,” she says.
A focal point of the campaign is Marty Stelnick’s Million Ways to Move song and accompanying music video which will be featured between TVOKids programs throughout the day. The video features TVOKids hosts and children from the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada.
The campaign also encourages kids to get their family and friends moving as well.
Kids can also print off a bingo game card filled with different ways to move. Once the child has done everything on the card they can send it to TVOKids and get a TVOKids pedometer.
Meanwhile, new recommendations released in January say children aged 5-11 and youth aged 12-17 require at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity activity each day. Currently, only 9 per cent of boys and 4 per cent of girls get that much exercise each day in Canada.
