Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

The Early Years (ages 0-4) is a critical period for developing physical, social and cognitive skills. Furthermore, it provides an opportunity to positively influence the health trajectory of a child's life and to reduce health inequalities. Typically, a toddler's movement behaviours will be a combination of sleep, sitting, standing, physical activity and play. Little is known how these movements influence one another and how they relate to healthy development, and this lack of knowledge is more apparent in low and middle income countries (LMICs). The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified preventing obesity in young children as one of its key priorities of the 21st Century; movement behaviours play a key role in achieving this. Currently there are no international movement-related guidelines for the early years, which is problematic for assigning benchmarks and estimating prevalence levels. Canada and Australia are each finalizing their country's respective 24-hour movement guidelines for the early years (targeting physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep), which will be co-released in November 2017 and will be the world's first of their type. Furthermore, the WHO has confirmed that they will respond with Global 24-hour movement guidelines in early 2018. Initial data collected from Canada and Australia show that <15% of toddlers meet all three of the movement guidelines: at least 180 minutes of physical activity, with 60 minutes of energetic play; no more than 1 hour of sedentary screen time; and 10-13 hours of quality sleep. Not meeting these guidelines increases the risk for poorer health and negative developmental outcomes. Therefore, this study will collect international surveillance data using the new global 24-hr movement guidelines as benchmarks, across countries with different Human Developmental Indexes, and aid the global community in preventing obesity. As a result, a planning meeting is necessary to coordinate this global effort.