The ranking, co-ordinated by Active Healthy Kids Canada (AHKC), which produces an annual assessment of physical activity engaged in by young people in Canada, gave Scotland an F grade, indicating that 0-20 per cent of children and youth were meeting a defined benchmark.

The Canadian physical activity guidelines suggest that three to four-year-olds get at least three hours of physical activity at any intensity every day, and five to 17-year-olds at least one hour of moderate- to vigorous-intensity activity.

Scotland also received an F grade, along with Canada, Nigeria and South Africa, for "sedentary behaviours".

The AHKC report card observed that "Scottish adolescents have extremely high levels of recreational screen time".

It highlighted "a major disconnect between apparently favourable policy and physical activity environments, and what children are actually doing".

The findings suggest there is plenty of scope for Glasgow 2014 and other high-profile sporting events to inspire young Scots to pursue more active, and probably healthier, lifestyles.

The exercise revealed a broad spread of strengths and weaknesses overall, with only the United States, Ireland and Mexico failing to be ranked either top or joint top in at least one of nine categories.

The report highlighted a major disconnect between "favourable policy" and what children are actually doing when it comes to physical activity ©Getty Images



Explaining the undertaking, AHKC said it had "provided leadership to co-ordinate the development of the world's first ever global matrix of grades on the physical activity of children and youth.

"Fifteen countries developed national physical activity report cards based on the AHKC model and participated in the global matrix process."

It said it was "important to note that the grades were likely influenced to some extent by methodological differences inherent to the synthesized research studies that inform each country's report card.

"Nevertheless, the grades for indicators of physical activity behaviour are low in most of the global matrix countries."

It is also fair to say that countries sometimes rank high in certain categories largely owing to less than desirable characteristics prevailing there.

For example, in Mozambique and Kenya, high physical activity levels "consist largely of transport and domestic chores such as collecting wood and fetching water".

The 15 countries covered are: Australia, Canada, Colombia, England, Finland, Ghana, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico, Mozambique, New Zealand, Nigeria, Scotland, South Africa, and the United States.

The report card can be accessed here. 

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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