Grant: Knowledge Synthesis Grant - PA: Phys. Act., sedentary behaviours and health

A systematic review is a scientific way to understand what the literature tells us about a specific topic. We will do a systematic review on relationship between physical activity and health in preschoolers because we want to create recommendations (also known as guidelines) for parents, educators, and governments to help them provide the best opportunities for preschoolers to be active and healthy. At the moment, Canada does not have physical activity guidelines for children younger than 6 years old. Our team has a lot of experience doing systematic reviews and we have already made guidelines for children older than 6 and who are in school. We will start by finding all of the studies that have looked at physical activity in preschoolers and that have included some measure of health, like being overweight. We will pay close attention to how these studies say physical activity is done by preschoolers, like how much, how often, and how hard or intense. We will even include studies that look at play because we recognize that play is a critical aspect of development in young children. After we collect all of this information, we will share it with the people who can really use it. We will hold a special meeting and we will invite people from government (who make policies), from national organizations like ParticipACTION (who promote physical activity), and from provincial groups like Best Start (who serve as a resource for parents). Together at this meeting, we will agree on what kind of physical activity is needed to optimize health in preschoolers and transform those recommendations into easy-to-understand guidelines. At the end of this meeting, we expect to have the first ever Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines for Preschool-aged Children (0 to 5 years). These guidelines will be based on the best available science. Ultimately, parents, care-providers, educators, and governments from around the world can have the highest confidence in Canada's guidelines.