School children in B.C. will be required to do 30 minutes of exercise a day Education Minister Shirley Bond announced. “This is not about mandatory P.E., this is about daily physical activity,” said Bond after making the first-day-of-school announcement in Vancouver. Students will be able to sweat out their mandatory minutes either during or outside of school hours, said Bond, so walking to school, extracurricular sports and classroom calisthenics will all be on the list of acceptable activities. Bond also announced the provincial government is about to fast-track its two-year-old promise to remove junk food from schools by 2009. The ban on unhealthy snacks will be implemented in elementary schools this January and in middle and secondary schools by September 2008. Statistics Canada says one in four B.C. children and youth is obese or overweight.

Health Canada recommends children and youth do at least 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical exercise per day, which could be anything from brisk walking, skating, and bike riding to running, weight training, and team sports.

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