Roughly eight in ten children around the world are not getting enough physical activity and spending too much time in front of a screen everyday, a new international study reports. The paper, , found that only 14.3 per cent of three and four-year-old toddlers across Canada and 32 other countries are meeting the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidelines for daily physical activity, screen time and sleep.

The findings are based on country-reported data of 7,017 toddlers across 14 years, with at least 40 children in each country studied. According to , children should have at least 180 minutes of physical activity a day — 60 of which should be moderate to vigorous activity — no more than one hour of screen time and between 10 to 13 hours of sleep. Dr.

Mark Tremblay, a senior scientist with the Healthy Active Living and Obesity (HALO) Research Group at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute and one of the paper’s 50 co-authors, told the Star the study’s findings were “certainly cause for concern.” Even if the findings are worrying, parents shouldn’t immediately be blamed, according to London pediatrician Dr. Michelle Ponti, who said “families are just doing the very best they can.

” “I think the issue is a societal issue because these (mobile) devices hit the market with no rules or regulations in place,” she explained. “They weren’t designed for children in mind, nor were parents prepared for how to plan for these devices wi.