Grant: Meetings, Planning & Dissemination Grant: Institute of Nutrition Metabolism....

High levels of physical inactivity and escalating obesity rates threaten to substantially increase the burden of chronic diseases in Canada and Internationally. Public health efforts to change the behavioral determinants of obesity in the population are important. Young adulthood represents one of the most strident transitions in obesity and physical inactivity and the onset of parenthood is the most reliable and largest marker of declining health behaviour. Our research team is conducting two longitudinal trials on the onset of parenthood and its effect on health behaviours. These trials represent the best measurement and design on the topic of parenthood, physical activity, and healthy eating. The projects are now nearing completion and represent a wealth of information in which to move forward with knowledge translation and future project planning. The objectives of this meeting grant are to: meet with researchers from these original grant teams and to invite additional international collaborators as an opportunity to form new international collaborations, discuss new ideas, future intervention projects, and innovative proposals, identify a strategy to undertake a multi-site trial across countries in order to examine the effect of international parental leave differences on the health behaviours of parents, and to identify funding partners and facilitate grant preparation and submission in each country. The proposed meeting would be held in Victoria in February, 2010 across two days. The meeting would be instrumental in bringing together a multidisciplinary team spanning exercise physiology, psychology, sociology, obstetrics, community practice, knowledge transfer, women's health, nutrition, and research methods and statistics. The researchers form an international complement across Canada and the United States. The content of the meeting is well aligned with the INMD mandate because of its focus on obesogenic behaviour and parental health.