As a kinesiology student at Queen’s University for four years, Lindsey Griffith became fluent in the science of human movement.

Now as a medical student at McMaster University, she’s fascinated with how physical activity affects health and disease.

So when Griffith heard about an organization aimed at bringing her two fields together, she could hardly wait to bring it to Hamilton.

Last week she was among 13 students at the first executive meeting of Exercise is Medicine at McMaster, including youth from the faculties of medicine, kinesiology and biomedical sciences.

“I can only see this getting bigger,” says Griffith, 24, who believes that prescribing exercise to boost health and prevent disease is the way of the future.

McMaster is one of three Ontario sites for Exercise is Medicine on Campus, an initiative aimed at connecting the next wave of students, researchers and physicians. Most notable about Griffith’s group, which has 30 members, is the involvement of medical students.

If the province’s future physicians are open to prescribing exercise the way today’s physicians hand out pills, it could mean big changes in health care.

“There’s a huge interest on behalf of the medical profession and students,” says Griffith, who hopes to work as a family physician or pediatrician and would like to see an exercise prescription component added to the medical school curriculum.

Those goals are shared by the group at Queen’s University, spearheaded by three Masters students in kinesiology. They are also promoting regular exercise among the student body to reduce stress and sickness, and the use of written prescriptions at campus health services and in the community.

Connecting busy physicians and exercise experts who can help implement prescriptions is critical to making it work, says Dr. Mary Kate Gazendam, lead physician at Loyalist Family Health Team near Kingston.

She has been working closely with Queen’s students to put the pieces in place at Loyalist. In the last few months, they have collaborated on an electronic exercise prescription form that doctors can download, and on designing a referral system for physicians that would help patients with specific exercise strategies. A public launch of their joint program is scheduled for later this month.

“This is really cutting edge, we can really try and change the culture,” says Gazendam, who has practised for 25 years. Like many physicians, she has always urged patients to exercise but has limited time to counsel each one. She would welcome backup in the form of support staff to devise routines and help each patient “fill” their exercise prescription.

The movement is also taking off at the University of Guelph, where more than 40 students are actively involved.

“The way you’re going to get this shift in medicine is by getting people in our age bracket thinking a different way,” says Lydia Frost, 23, a Masters student in biosmechanics and one of the organizers of Exercise is Medicine at Guelph.

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A university campus is an ideal place to start because it’s full of engaged and motivated youth. At the same time, they’re in a phase of stress and transition, when exercise should be promoted as one of the first tools to improve mental and physical health. Student surveys show more than 80 per cent aren’t meeting recommended guidelines for physical activity.

The Guelph group is working with campus health services on a pilot program involving exercise prescription pads. They are also making strides in the community, proposing an Exercise is Medicine workshop for high school classes that would focus on exercise prescription and its role in health care, and by planning a lunch-hour fitness and education program for at-risk students at a local elementary school to incorporate the exercise-health connection at an early age.