First off, the keynote speaker for the event was Silken Laumann. For those of you who aren’t familiar with her story, she is the Canadian rower who won a bronze medal in Barcelona only 10 weeks after having her leg completed ripped apart by another team's boat.

Although Silken's athletic achievements are certainly inspirational, it was her message about getting kids more healthy and active that was truly amazing. Her book 'Child’s Play: Rediscovering the Joy of Play in our Families and Communities' is a great call to action for anyone concerned about the current and future health status of children across North America (as we all are). I have spent recent months reading a great deal of scientific literature about youth development, but this book really gets to the heart of the issues and provides great perspective to all readers. She is the best former athlete speaker I have ever seen - and I've seen a lot.

On a very similar note, another speaker at the conference was Dr. Mark Tremblay who is the Chair of Active Healthy Kids Canada. He has done extensive research on the health of Canadian children and provided many interesting facts and insights.

1) The obesity epidemic in North America has actually coincided with increased participation in organized sport

2) The odds of a child being overweight/obese is greatly reduced if they participate in unorganized sport. However, the relationship between participation in organized sport and body weight was not statistically significant.

The messages of these two speakers made me think a great deal about the current state of North American society. Kids don't walk to school - they get driven. They don't play in the park - it's too dangerous. Kids aren't even allowed to play tag in the schoolyard anymore!

The role of unorganized sport in the health of young people is certainly being underestimated. This points to deeper sociological problems that we, as those passionately involved in youth development, must work hard to address.

I think sometimes we get too wrapped up in reps, sets and exercises and forget that there are a lot of kids who need to be inspired just to get off the couch and walk around the block.

We must reach out beyond our individual athletes and address the needs of our individual communities - and hopefully we can get enough people on board to make a difference.

I went to the conference to present a research poster - I wasn't expecting to get nearly as much out of my experience as I did. Just goes to show you that true inspiration often comes when we least expect it.

Children should be encouraged to get out and play just for fun. However, the flip side of this is that with our society being SO focused on activities of luxury, many children literally don't know HOW to move and have fun. We are now initiating programs that, as ludicrous as it may sound to those of us that are not from this new generation, TEACH kids how to move their bodies and have a great time doing that. It's not enough anymore to just give them a ball (we're talking older kids that have spent years sitting around) and tell them to go play. They won't and they will feel self-conscious. Obviously that approach works better with small children that haven't been yet taken in by the 360 or the Wii or the PS3. Older sedentary kids need instruction and confidence building activities

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