Canadian youth are about the middle of the pack when it comes to aerobic fitness levels compared with kids in 49 other countries, according to a study co-led by CHEO researchers.

Leading: Tanzania, Iceland, Estonia, Norway and Japan. Kids in Canada placed 19th — just behind Slovakia, Germany and Senegal, but ahead of Turkey, the UK and Poland.

Not bad, compared with the U.S., which placed 47th. Worst performers: Latvia, Peru and Mexico.

“There are broad general patterns. Kids from north-central Europe and kids from Africa tend to be more fit. What’s going on? We didn’t look at that in the paper,” said Justin Lang of the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research group at CHEO and a PhD student at the University of Ottawa.

“It’s probably safe to say kids from these countries are more physically active and less sedentary than kids in Canada.”

The international study, co-led by CHEO and the University of North Dakota, compared the performance of young people between the ages of nine and 17 in the 20-metre shuttle run test. Also known as the “beep test,” it was developed in 1984 at the University of Montreal and is common and standardized around the world.

Essentially, subjects run between two pylons 20 metres apart. At first the pace is 8.5 kilometres an hour, equivalent to a brisk walk. Then the pace is increased in increments of .5 kilometre an hour, prompted by an electronic beep. The subjects keep up as long as they can, and the test ends when they can no longer keep up. The study results suggest the average kid from Tanzania would be running the race four times longer than the average kid from Mexico, said Lang.

The researchers accessed data from 1.1 million kids in the 50 countries who did the shuttle run test, considered the best field-based measure of cardiorespiratory endurance or CRE. While CRE is primarily determined by genetic factors, it can be modified by physical activity. Kids with good CRE tend to be healthy and grow up to be healthy adults free of non-communicable diseases such as cardiac and respiratory illnesses.

“It tell us how healthy these populations will be in the future,” said Lang.