Heat waves and poor air quality from wildfires pose extra challenges tochildren and youth who need more exercise outside and less time staring at screens, a new report says.

ParticipAction’s latest report card, released Tuesday, gives Canada’s kids a D+ for overall physical activity. It found that 39 per cent of children between the ages of five and 17 met the recommendation of 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise a day.

The letter grade is a slight improvement from a D in 2022, when COVID-19 pandemic restrictions meant kids lost out on organized sports and school activities.

The non-profit, which ranks children’s fitness levels every two years using mostly Statistics Canada surveys, found that 31 per cent of girls met the physical activity recommendations compared to 57 per cent of boys.

Promoting physical activity among five- to 17-year-olds “is like swimming against the current” because screens keep them sedentary indoors when they could be benefiting from free play and activities outdoors, said lead researcher Mark Tremblay.

“It’s a very tough aspiration in the world in which we live right now, where the built environment is one that is more conducive to being indoors and inactive,” said Tremblay, who is also a senior scientist withan obesity research group at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute in Ottawa.

The report card says heat waves and smoke-filled air lead to cancellations of sports activities and recess, which can make kids more sedentary.

However, while the increasing impact of climate change means kids – especially those with asthma – should switch to indoor activities, those can be too expensive for many families, Tremblay said.