Active for Life was born in the spring of 2010, where the leadership team of B2ten met to debrief after Canada’s success at the Vancouver Winter Olympics.
The team agreed that winning medals was wonderful, but they also noticed a concerning trend: Canadian children were less active and less involved in sport than ever before. In the digital age, more needed to be done to inspire children to lead more active lives.
Because physical activity promotes the cognitive, emotional, social, and physical development of children, and is essential to physical health, mental health, quality of life and well-being, B2ten was inspired to act. Dedicated to reversing this negative trend in the health of children, B2ten created Active for Life (AfL) and gathered a team to find easy, practical and positive solutions for families and educators.
After speaking with leaders in the physical activity sector, AfL came to 3 conclusions:.
- Physical literacy is a simple solution to help all children, sporty or not, to become more active, healthy, and successful in life.
- Parents and early childhood educators are the gatekeepers when it comes to children’s activities, and the enablers of life-long habits.
- Parents and early childhood educators need resources, education, and inspiration, but mostly they need practical solutions to get children more active.
As AfL has moved forward, these conclusions evolved into directing principles. And since that spring of 2010, we’ve remained dedicated to helping parents and educators encourage a love of movement in their children, so they can develop physically active habits and be healthy, happy and active for life.