More than 80,000 Australian children are expected to benefit from a trial being rolled out to 700 childcare centres across the country that aims to boost declining physical activity levels.
In the early years, play contributes significantly to kids’ cognitive, social, physical and emotional development, yet most Australian children don’t do enough energetic play for their health and development.
Australia is currently sitting at a D- for children’s activity – a statistic that hasn’t changed since 2015.
Research from The Kids Research Institute Australia’s Child Physical Activity, Health and Development team, led by Professor Hayley Christian AM, has identified that only one in ten Australian kids aged three to five are getting the recommended amount of daily energetic play.
“The Australian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for the Early Years state children aged three to five years should be getting three or more hours of physical activity per day, including 60 minutes of energetic play,” Professor Christian said.
“But our research has found that while most children get enough physical activity, they are missing out on the ‘huff and puff’ they do in short bursts that is essential for their health and development.”
Professor Christian said early childhood education and care (ECEC) services play an important role in encouraging young children to be physically active, healthy and developing well.
“Given young children spend a lot of time in childcare, there is a huge opportunity here to increase their physical activity and energetic play levels, and this is where the Play Active program comes in,” she said.
Backed by 10 years of research and co-created with the ECEC sector, Play Active is the only program of its kind in Australia that provides evidence-informed guidelines on the amount of physical activity, sedentary time and screen time children should have while attending early childhood education and care.
“We’ve modelled the physical activity program on our partner Cancer Council’s successful SunSmart program for childcare centres.
“Play Active provides a service-tailored physical activity policy, free professional development, resources and support on how ECEC services can build more opportunities for energetic play into the day.
“This will help early learning services meet and exceed National Quality Standards around physical activity and aligns to the Early Years Learning Framework.”
The Child Physical Activity, Health and Development team has worked with multi-sector partner organisations including leading research institutes, universities, ECEC services and agencies, government and not-for-profit organisations to adapt Play Active for scalable delivery across Australia.
The program is being rolled out nationally with support from the Federal Government’s Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF), and additional support from the WA Government’s health promotion agency, Healthway, to ensure equitable access to Play Active among priority populations throughout WA.
“Play Active is a real-world program supported by research and evaluation. Evidence from this trial will inform an Australia-wide delivery model,” Professor Christian said.
“Nutrition, sleep and sun protection policies are required in national ECEC regulations but there is no guidance around how much physical activity, sedentary and screen time children should have while in care. Play Active fills this gap.”
“We are also hopeful that Play Active will lead to positive change in addressing active play-based learning in the early years long term.”
Next steps
- Expanding Play Active across Australia to reach more than 700 ECEC services and 80,000 children over the next four years
- Evaluating how well Play Active is implemented across different states and territories, and the longer-term effectiveness of the program for increasing young children’s physical activity
- Identifying future delivery partners beyond the life of the existing grant funding for long term sustainability of the program