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More than 80,000 Australian children are expected to benefit as 700 childcare centres across the country trial a new program aimed at boosting declining physical activity levels.

A The Kids Research Institute Australia researcher focused on promoting more active childhoods to improve child health and wellbeing will be named amongst WA’s most outstanding young scientists at the upcoming 2020 Young Tall Poppy Science Awards.

The Kids Research Institute Australia and University of Western Australia physical activity researcher Hayley Christian has been named Young Tall Poppy Scientist of the Year at the 2020 WA Young Tall Poppy Science Awards.

Childcare centres will be invited to help boost children’s physical activity levels by signing on to a new program which commits them to creating more opportunities for physical activity.

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.

Physical activity improves physical and psychosocial outcomes in healthy children and in children with a range of chronic health conditions. Unfortunately, children with chronic health conditions have lower levels of physical activity compared to their healthy peers due to multiple restrictions in physical activities and therefore tend to have lower levels of physical activity compared with their peers. This paper describes the protocol for Move to Improve, a pragmatic trial of an individualised physical activity intervention for children with chronic health conditions.

There is currently limited data regarding the physical activity behaviors of trans and gender diverse people (including binary and non-binary identities; henceforth trans). The aim of this review was to synthesize the existing literature in this area, with a focus on physical activity behaviors as they relate to health (e.g. health benefits, risks of adverse health outcomes). 

Regular exercise can be beneficial for people living with a severe mental illness. By better understanding the perspectives and challenges of adults with severe mental illness who are engaged in exercise, we can enhance the design and implementation of exercise programs to better support their mental health and recovery.

Current methods for assessing the healthfulness of 24-hour movement behaviours (sleep, sedentary time, light physical activity, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity) use binary classifications that fail to capture their continuous and compositional nature. This study introduces a percentile-based scoring and visualization approach to evaluate the healthfulness of movement behaviour time-use compositions, using social-emotional development in early childhood as an example.