Olympic athletes as health ambassadors
Email
Print
Letter to Editor
Share
Extraordinary events often provide a unique opportunity to create initiatives that provide long-term benefits for society. In less than four months, Canada will host the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The Games will galvanize civic attention around some remarkable feats of courage and athleticism. They will also provide us with an outstanding opportunity to create a dynamic, post-Games legacy that will address one of the most important health challenges our nation faces: the burden of chronic diseases.
An elite athlete health ambassador program (EAHAP), created and funded by the federal and provincial governments, could be that legacy. This program would employ our Canadian athletes to adopt a series of schools that they could visit on an ongoing basis. The athletes would teach children how to live healthy, active lives; give workshops on making healthy food choices; improve literacy by encouraging reading; speak about the destructive impact of smoking, illegal drugs and alcohol abuse.
As they are young role models, their message would be a powerful one for the students to hear. This program would provide children with the knowledge and encouragement they need to lead active, healthy lives.
The EAHAP would have two benefits. It would improve health outcomes for the children participating in the program, and would also address the chronic lack of funds our top level athletes face. The return on investment for the taxpayer would come through a reduction in the prevalence of chronic diseases that would come from children learning about healthy living habits early on in life.
The benefit for the athletes is they would not have to be living hand to mouth, worried about making ends meet while engaged in their intense training schedules.
Currently, 91 per cent of Canadian children are not attaining recommended physical activity levels. In fact, new studies show that today’s children are the first generation in history that will have a shorter projected life span than their parents. This is due largely to the chronic diseases that will affect them as adults due to the inactivity and poor lifestyle habits they learn as children.
It is also interesting to note that other studies have shown that a student’s school performance improves significantly if they have daily aerobic activity.
The federal and provincial governments should collaborate and create an elite athlete health ambassador program as part of an enduring, positive legacy that will last long after the Olympic flame of our 2010 Winter Games has been extinguished.
Implementing this initiative will improve the health of generations of Canadians to come while enabling our elite athletes to have the resources they need to be the best they can be. What a legacy this would be.
MartiK1A@parl.gc.ca
—Dr. Keith Martin is a doctor and the MP for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca.
v2
