Getting In On The Action

It almost seems like another era when Health Canada launched their ParticipACTION campaign, encouraging Canadians to become active and get involved with sports. It was the early 1970s, and according to their website, the ads used humour to make Canadians aware of their lack of fitness and the related health implications, plus educate us on how to get started. Eventually the program ended, but was relaunched in 2007, with its primary message to Get Moving.

Today, new research sourced from the Ipsos Household Equipment Canada Survey shows that 80% of Canadian households participate in at least one or more fitness or sports activities. And in British Columbia, the home of Lululemon, overall fitness participation is especially high at 86%. Though in contrast, yoga is not among the most popular activities, with only 11% of Canadian Households taking a Downward Dog pose.

So what are the top activities? Our research further finds that the top five fitness and sports activities nationally are walking for exercise, exercising at home with equipment, cycling/biking, aerobics, and swimming. Anyone who has been to Kits Pool in British Columbia, may see why swimming is most popular among BC households, while in the Prairies (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba), Canadians are more likely to exercise at home with equipment than elsewhere in the country. Aerobics appeals most to households in Ontario, Alberta and BC, and is also one of the activities favoured by households with especially high annual income.

What's the sixth most popular sport? It's golf, which is interesting given recent media discussions over the substantial contribution of golf to Canada's GDP. Check out this TSN story here.

With walking for exercise being far and away the most popular activity (46%), perhaps Canadians have been paying attention and, indeed, encouraged to get moving.

The data featured in this article are sourced from a survey conducted in July 2014 that was administered to a sample of consumers drawn at random from the Ipsos online panel in Canada, with a total of 16,599 completed questionnaires. Weighting was employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the Canadian household population according to Statistics Canada census data and to provide results intended to approximate the entire population.