Exercise as a therapy is mentioned in almost all prevention and treatment guidelines, which are written by doctors themselves. Still, most patients never hear their doctor talk about it. And fewer than one in four Canadians meet current guidelines for physical activity, which recommend that people participate in moderate (such as brisk walking) and vigorous (such as jogging, swimming or running) activity for at least 150 minutes per week.
Part of the reason is that most doctors in practice today received little, if any, training on the role of exercise in managing disease. Years ago I taught a 30-minute lecture on the topic at a Canadian medical school and this was all the students got over their four-year program.
This is about to change.
Free gym prescriptions
In recent years, Canadian medical schools — such as the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary — have revised their curricula to incorporate aspects of exercise in the prevention and treatment of disease.
This is one part of growing initiatives like Exercise is Medicine that advocate for the role of exercise and encourage doctors to prescribe it.
Similarly, the Prescription to Get Active program in Alberta allows doctors to prescribe free 30-day gym memberships to patients.
A grassroots program called Walk with a Doc has local doctors walking with their patients. The program was begun by Dr. David Sabgir, a cardiologist in Columbus, Ohio, who was frustrated with his inability to affect behaviour change in the clinical setting and invited his patients to go for a walk with him in a local park one Saturday morning. More than 100 people showed up, and there are now 400 chapters worldwide.
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