Take Me to Your Leader!
Your Role in SummerActive 2008

SummerActive is a national community mobilization initiative designed to help Canadians, including Aboriginal Peoples, improve their health by encouraging and supporting their first steps towards regular physical activity, healthy eating, living a tobacco-free lifestyle and participating in sport activities. To meet these goals, Canadians need some help getting started, and that’s where you come in!

Each year, SummerActive community leaders like you help less active Canadians take their first steps to leading a healthier lifestyle by hosting a variety of programs, workshops and special events that show Canadians how easy and fun it can be to become more physically active, select healthier foods, live tobacco-free and participate in sport opportunities.

Whether it’s organizing a hike around local trails, developing a recreational baseball camp, hosting a healthy ‘picnic ‘n play’ event at the park, setting up a soccer skills challenge, offering a healthy eating cooking class, starting an in-line skate-a-thon, or coordinating a jump rope challenge, the possibilities for a unique SummerActive event are only limited by what your imagination can dream up!

The aim is to get people moving and understanding the benefits of healthy eating and living smoke-free so they can feel good, have fun and get in the habit of building healthy behaviours into their daily routine -- every little bit counts, and more is even better!

You can incorporate tips for getting activities started from the series of Canada’s Physical Activity Guides, and let your clients, members and participants know that they can get their free copies of the Guides online by visiting www.paguide.com. Information on sport participation is also available at www.pch.gc.ca/progs/sc/index_e.cfm.

Tips and information on healthy eating are available by visiting Health Canada’s website at www.hc-sc.gc.ca/nutrition or by downloading a copy of Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide at www.healthcanada.gc.ca/foodguide.

Leading By Example to Improve Health

Many factors can influence our health. From our family history to our social, physical and economic environment to our own individual coping skills. Some of these factors are within our control to varying degrees, but one area where people definitely can influence their health positively is through their own personal health practices, and you can lead the way to a healthier lifestyle.

By spreading the word about the benefits of physical activity you are helping Canadians better understand the risks of sedentary living and the costs of inactivity to our health-care system.

The Key Principles of a Healthy Lifestyle

SummerActive 2008 also provides an opportunity for community leaders to link the key principles of leading a healthy lifestyle: being physically active, making healthy food choices, and avoiding tobacco products. By organizing SummerActive events that demonstrate the connection between these principles, you will be helping Canadians improve and maintain their health.

According to statistics, close to two-thirds of Canadians are not active enough to achieve health benefits. Canadians need to get active their way, everyday, for life and encouraging Canadians of all ages and fitness levels to try a SummerActive 2008 event is one way to get them started.

The first key principle is to improve our health through physical activity. According to Canada’s Physical Activity Guide, adults need to accumulate 30-60 minutes of moderate physical activity every day to improve health. Participating in sport and physical activity events is one way that Canadians can get active and have fun at the same time!

Another key principle to improve our health is to quit smoking and visiting www.gosmokefree.ca is a good place to start. Smokers who quit immediately begin to reduce risks of developing heart disease, cancer and breathing problems. 

The third key principle to integrate into a healthy lifestyle is healthy eating. Eating well doesn't mean giving up the foods we love; it means choosing wisely from a variety of foods and choosing whole grain and lower fat foods more often.

You can let participants in your SummerActive event know that they can get more information on healthy eating in Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide, available at www.healthcanada.gc.ca/foodguide.

Walk, Wheel & Win… Prizes for Participation

Since its inception over a decade ago SummerActive, and its counterpart WinterActive, have become hugely popular annual initiatives. They have resulted in hundreds of events and programs that helped thousands of Canadians take their first steps toward adopting a healthy lifestyle.

The 2008 SummerActive program is poised to be even more successful from coast to coast to coast, and the best news is that Canadians can win great prizes just for being a part of SummerActive!

So don’t forget to register your event, and then record your participants individually so they are eligible for the weekly prizes. Or, if you have a large number of participants, you can do a “bulk” registration, indicating only the number of people who took part in your event. In this case, be sure to encourage anyone involved in your event to register their participation, since only those registered as individuals will be eligible for the prizes.

Be sure to check out the other contents of the Leader Tools for tips to help promote your SummerActive event and guidelines for using the SummerActive logo in material to promote your event.

You can find many other useful resources at the SummerActive website in the ‘About SummerActive’ section as well as the Media Room.

Thanks for being a SummerActive community leader and good luck with your 2008 SummerActive event!