Feed

Imagine a treatment improving physical AND mental health is identified by an important number of studies. Scientists continuously work on this treatment to analyze, improve, and understand it better. Imagine that this treatment is not only cheap but makes people save money when used. Imagine now that a large number of professionals are especially trained each year to administer this treatment but next to none are working in any health service centre nor pharmacy. This absurd situation is currently happening in Quebec. Despite the vast literature supporting the benefits of physical activity for mental health, kinesiologists are seldom involved in mental health care settings. Paradoxically, Quebec's and Canada's researchers have made important strides on this subject over the last decade. Indeed, teams worked to analyze physical activity's effect on mental well-being, mental illness symptoms and comorbid metabolic disorders. But kinesiologists (physical activity and behaviour change specialists) are still chronically underemployed in mental health settings nonetheless. Today, fewer than 1 in 3 kinesiology graduates is fully employed in a position linked to their training (including a variety of fields outside of health services). Financing the implantation of kinesiologists in public health services would, therefore, be among the best use of public funds.