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Physical activity is crucial for young children's health and development. Many young children do not meet the recommended 3 hours of daily physical activity, including 60 min of energetic play. Early childhood education and care (ECEC/childcare) is a key setting to intervene to improve children's physical activity. The Play Active programme is a scalable evidence-informed ECEC-specific physical activity policy intervention with implementation support strategies to improve educators' physical activity-related practices.
This scoping review considers the experiences of aspiring high school-aged athletes as they navigate the complexities of managing sport, education, social, and family life. The review synthesises existing literature on the decisions, barriers, facilitators, and support systems that influence aspiring athletes' pathways.
Children's physical activity and screen time behaviours impact their physical health and well-being. In Australia, less than half of children meet daily physical activity recommendations and only one-third meet daily screen time recommendations.
International guidelines recommend multidisciplinary intervention programs for addressing childhood obesity. In Western Australia, community-based healthy lifestyle programs for children and young people are insufficient for demand, especially for those over-represented in obesity statistics relating to prevalence. This protocol outlines the implementation and evaluation of an adapted, evidenced, community-based program in Perth, Western Australia.
Adaptive behaviour change is central to improving population health, yet poor adoption of health-enhancing behaviours contributes to noncommunicable diseases and so remains a global concern. Research on physical activity behaviour change has continued to expand and evolve since the turn of the millennium, guided by diverse theoretical approaches-from social cognitive theories, organismic dialectical approaches such as Self-Determination Theory, dual-process frameworks, and integrated practical models and taxonomies.
There is an urgent need for scalable interventions to promote physical activity in early childhood. An early childhood education and care physical activity policy intervention with implementation support strategies (Play Active) has been proposed for scale-up in Australia.
While international evidence suggests seasonal variations may influence outcomes of interventions for pediatric obesity, data for Aotearoa New Zealand are limited. We examined seasonal variations in changes in body mass index standard deviation score (BMI SDS) in young people with obesity enrolled in an intervention programme.
Robust evaluation is critical for understanding and enhancing the impact of health promotion initiatives. However, many community-based organisations face challenges in planning and conducting evaluation due to limitations in knowledge, resources, and the applicability of existing evaluation frameworks. The Healthway Evaluation Framework, and its accompanying practical Measurement Toolkit, was designed to support evaluation planning, implementation, and reporting across diverse health promotion programs and settings.
Exercise for people with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is important for their health and wellbeing and can provide opportunities for community participation. However, they may find it difficult to participate in some contexts, such as community gyms because social and environmental barriers in these settings may compound difficulties caused by physical impairments or intellectual disability.
Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) experience difficulties performing fundamental movement skills, resulting in reduced physical activity (PA). Given low PA can impact mental and physical health, improving PA in DCD appears imperative. This study investigates the feasibility of a Facebook delivered, parent mediated, PA intervention for children with DCD.