Lt. Tragg: I hope you forgive this intrusion.
Perry Mason: I’m always glad to see you, lieutenant.
Lt. Tragg: Well, let’s say sometimes you’re gladder than others.
Perry Mason: The Case of the Garrulous Gambler (1959)
Raymond Burr, the New Westminster-born actor who spent nine seasons (1957 -1966) portraying the Los Angles legal beagle Perry Mason in the popular TV drama of the same name, and who was posthumously listed by TV Guide as one of the 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time (were he alive today, he would be 100 years old) would not have been at all glad to learn that Canadians are failing in their health and fitness such that, chronic, preventable disease is now our biggest killer.
Even Perry Mason, ace lawyer, and his secretary Della Street, would be hard pressed to make a winning case against this killer. And, in an unfortunate plot twist, appropriate to a gripping courtroom drama, it appears the wounds are self-inflicted.
Most Canadians, admit it or not, are guilty of sitting more and moving less, and this inactivity comes at a staggering cost to ourselves, our families and the economy. However, a new Bill, some Olympic-sized determination and the latest in brain research, suggests a breakthrough in this “case” is imminent.
“Chronic diseases are the largest causes of death and disability in British Columbia,” claims a 2010 report by the Provincial Health Officer.
“In 2005, non-communicable, chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and cerebrovascular disease resulted in 19,597 deaths, more than half (57.6 per cent) of all deaths in BC. In addition, health care costs associated with cerebrovascular disease were $242 million, cardiovascular disease $944 million and cancer $1.2 billion, in 2005.”
Investing in Prevention: Improving Health and Creating Sustainability, The Provincial Health Officer’s Special Report, 2010
The fact that more than half of British Columbians die from potentially preventable deaths is shocking; the cost is astronomical. “The reality is we can build a health care system, but that is not health,’ says Canada’s Female Athlete of the Century, a septuagenarian, and Olympian whose name is synonymous with skiing in Canada, Senator Nancy Greene Raine.
“No government or agency can build health. Only individuals, parents and children can create their own health through good nutrition and physical activity,” continued Senator Greene Raine, at the second reading of her private member’s Bill unanimously approved in December 2014.
“We are starting a movement to make Canada the fittest nation on earth,” says Senator Greene Raine by phone from her home at Sun Peaks Resort in the Thompson/Okanagan. “And I think we can do it.”
“We are Canada!” says Pierre Lafontaine, the CEO of Cross Country Ski de Found Canada (CCC). “There’s no reason this country is not the fittest nation on earth,” he says, echoing Senator Greene Raine.
Lafontaine and Senator Greene Raine are two of a host of strong Canadian voices coalesced around a vision, now in its eighth year, to see Canadian children, youth and adults, get moving and beat the effects of sedentariness and obesity by becoming truly fit.
With the passage of Bill S-211 in 2014, naming the first Saturday in June National Health and Fitness Day, over 272 cities have proclaimed the day, and participate by opening recreational facilities like gyms and pools free to the public.
“We chose the date because it comes as the school year is winding down, and we hope it can be used as motivation to get people, especially kids, involved in physical activities through the summer months and, of course, to continue through the year,” explained Senator Greene Raine in her impassioned speech to the Senate.
“We want the day to involve everyone, from municipal parks and recreation departments to private fitness and sports clubs to retailers of sports equipment.”
Reflecting back on it, Lafontaine claims it was a chance meeting that launched all the momentum behind this Bill. “I found myself on a plane with a new MP, John Weston, from West Vancouver and I asked him what he was going to do for our country. I shared my enthusiasm for a national vision on active living. And he went about finding out a way to realize this,” says Lafontaine.
John Weston, now a former MP, (West Vancouver – Sunshine Coast – Sea to Sky Country, 2008-2015) is a consultant and professional speaker. His enthusiasm for active living is demonstrated by his own personal commitment to fitness (he has successfully completed the Whistler GranFondo six times). After the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and Paralympics, he assumed the broader national mandate to find a legacy for the 2010 Games.
“Seventy per cent of the [Olympic] sites were in the riding I represented. I posed the question, ‘What should be the national legacy of the Games?’ My answer: making health and fitness a more immediate goal for all Canadians, not just Olympians. I went on to create the Parliamentary Fitness Initiative; all MPs and Senators are invited to run and swim once each week, with the guidance of a top-level volunteer coach,” said Weston in his book, Moving People to Excellence.
“It was a multi-party, feel-good Bill that didn’t ask for money, and you didn’t need a million in investments,” says Phil Marsh, Regional Director of the Running Room, who stands as a co-conspirator with the noble core of Olympic athletes, coaches and politicians pressing on with the goal of a nation on the move.
“Today, we have MPs who are willing to live by example and be role models. These MPs are the examples we all need,” says Marsh, who, along with Lafontaine and Senator Greene Raine are active in weekly coaching of MPs and on hand for Bike, Swim and Ski Days on the Hill.
But for Marsh, a runner and coach of more than 27 years, including coaching double-amputee Jody Mitic to complete the 2009 Army Half Marathon as a CTV Amazing racer, there’s a need for a shift in cultural perception of the value of physical activity to our overall health.
”If my 92-year-old Dad was told to exercise by his doctor, he would switch doctors. He’ll cut his walk short but he won’t deny himself his pills or puffer.” Is it a generational thing Marsh wonders? His mother died of lung cancer and he fears for his dad who smokes.
Off the Hill and back in BC, renowned UBC brain researcher with the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health and CEO of Synaptitude Brain Health Dr. Max Cynader says, “There is a lot that can be done. People are unduly pessimistic.”
Dr. Cynader’s brain imaging company offers a one-stop shop of services that include brain imaging, genome sequencing, and cognitive assessments. Services are offered à la carte and include a personalized brain fitness program.
Of the cerebrovascular diseases like Alzheimer’s, stroke, and dementia, that cause BC’s high rates of morbidity each year, new brain research, claims Dr. Cynader, shows physical activity is the key preventative.
“It used to be thought that we already had all the brain cells we were ever going to have. That’s not true. We’re making thousands of new brain cells every day. And you can double or triple the number of new brain cells you make next week by doing physical exercise. More important than Sudoku, and more important than friends, and all that stuff, do exercise,” says Dr. Cynader during his TEDx talk, Enhancing the Plasticity of the Brain.
Dr. Teresa Liu-Ambrose, COO at Synaptitude, and an Associate Professor at UBC has done research showing that weight training for women, aged 65–75 years old, once or twice weekly, improves cognitive function and increases walking speed, a predictor of reduction in mortality.
In her 70s and still racing her husband to see who cuts the first tracks through fresh snow at Sun Peaks on a winter morning, Senator Greene Raine encourages anyone seeking a fun, new way to exercise to consider learning to ski. “Even if you’re 80!”
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