A Public Health Nurse in Grey Bruce wants parents to stop driving their kids to and from school.
Lynda Bumstead says youth need to walk at least 15 thousand steps a day, and the vast majority of children are not achieving this.
Instead she says kids are driven everywhere and as a result kids are fatter and less fit than children were in 1981.
Bumstead this only leads to future health problems such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
Bumstead suspects fear is the major reason why many parents choose to drive their kids rather than allow them to walk.
She says parents and schools need to work together to map out active safe routes to school and school travel planning.
Bumstead adds having all those cars idling outside the schools each morning and afternoon is also playing havoc with the environment.
Bumstead commends both the public and separate school boards for increasing their walking boundary distance to school to 1.6 kilometres.
