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The Daily Physical Activity (DPA) program in Ontario was created to help students achieve optimal levels of physical activity each day. This paper addresses the teachers' perspectives on DPA in the Thames Valley District School Board. We investigated program implementation as well as teacher beliefs about the benefits and drawbacks of DPA. Teachers have the primary responsibility of DPA implementation and are the most knowledgeable about its realities in relation to the mandated guidelines. Thus, it is important to communicate with teachers and administrators to assess the effectiveness of the program and its delivery to identify factors related to program success.
Over one quarter of Canadian children are now overweight or obese (Active Healthy Kids, 2009). One of the major factors contributing to this childhood societal problem is the recent decrease in physical activity (Active Healthy Kids, 2010). In 2010 nearly 90% of Canadian children did not meet the guidelines of a minimum 90 minutes of daily physical activity for optimal health and development (Active Healthy Kids. 2010). The most current guidelines have been adapted to recommend a minimum of 60 minutes of physical activity every day, however, data are not yet available for the percentage of children meeting these lowered recommendations. The responsibility for these recommended minutes of physical activity rests with parents in the context of the home environment, recreational settings, and schools. The Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia provincial governments have adopted DPA programs in their school systems in an attempt to address the increasingly sedentary lifestyles of Canadian children.
Children should be educated from early childhood to understand that physical activity is vitally important for healthy growth and development. An effective delivery system for this education is the school system, where virtually every child can benefit in a cost-effective manner. The school environment is thus an ideal place to implement physical activity and lifestyle interventions (Naylor & McKay, 2009). Children absorb information through socialization with their peers and teachers. If administration and teachers view physical activity as unimportant in the school, children may adopt a similar perspective. In the majority of Canadian elementary schools, physical education is taught by teachers who are not physical education specialists (Active Healthy Kids, 2009). Such teachers may be less likely to effectively teach developmentalIy appropriate...