PAUSE to PLAY

pause to PLAY 2009 Campaign

Get ready for a week full of fun and activities!

York Region Community and Health Services is inviting schools and families all over York Region to participate in the annual pause to PLAY Week from April 20 – 24, 2009.

Why pause to PLAY?

• Children aged 10 to 16 are spending 6 hours per day in front of a screen (Active Healthy Kids Canada – Report Card, 2007)

• The 2008 Canada's Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth assigned an F grade to the proportion of children and youth meeting Canada's screen time guidelines, down from a D- in 2007 (Active Healthy Kids Canada – Report Card, 2008)
• Children with high screen time tend to exhibit obesity, low fitness levels and lower levels of self-efficacy for physical activity (Active Healthy Kids Canada – Report Card, 2008)

pause to PLAY Week provides the perfect opportunity to have fun while improving the health of you and your family!

Children and youth from all over York Region will be encouraged to put television, video games and computers on PAUSE for one full week. They will be motivated to eat healthy foods, engage in physically active PLAY and other fun family and community activities away from screens. Our hope is that all participants will become more aware of how much time they have when they are not in front of a screen and see how much fun it can be to "pause to PLAY".

The pause to PLAY toolkit contains tools and promotional materials to assist children, youth, families and schools who would like to participate in the pause to PLAY Week.  Please feel free to download and print these resources.

1) pause to PLAY toolkit for schools

2) pause to PLAY toolkit for parents                     

Schools will also have the opportunity to win great prizes! Simply send us the completed School Feedback Form included in the toolkit, along with your success stories by May 15^th, and your school will have a chance to win fabulous prizes related to physical activity.

Good luck and we hope you enjoy this exciting week!

For more information, please contact York Region Health Connection at 1-800-361-5653.