Grant: CIHR Fellowship

The World Health Organization (WHO) has prioritized the prevention of childhood obesity and the promotion of active lifestyles during the early and formative years of children. Physical activity, the development of competent motor skills and cognitive abilities, play an influential role in children's weight status. Although a child's early years are very important for the development of physical activity behaviors, acquisition of motor skills and cognitive development, very little is known about these developmental areas during this critical period from birth to 5 years old. There is also a general lack of surveillance information, especially in countries, with limited resources about movement behaviors and how they relate to healthy child growth and development. As part of an international research effort, I am proposing a project that will help to address this problem. Using a standard protocol and comparable samples, we will collect data about important movement behaviors and motor skill development from 4-year-old preschoolers from Canada and 34 other countries around the world. The data we will obtain from this study will be comparable, within and between countries, providing rich information that could be used to inform policy decisions or interventions that could be differentially or uniformly applied across participating and other countries with similar contexts. With this project, we will provide a timely response to the release of the WHO 24-hour movement Guidelines for the Early Years (0-4 years). Leadership responsibilities, training, overseeing data collection and the accompanying capacity building for all participating, resource-limited countries (especially those in sub-Saharan Africa), will be a significant part of my overall role in this project. With this project, we will help link researchers from different backgrounds and form a global network which will enable future collaborations and exchange of ideas on policies and intervention programs.