This systematic review and meta-analysis synthesized evidence of the association between 24-h movement behaviors and social-emotional health and cognitive development in children and adolescents aged 3-18 years from studies using compositional data analysis. Systematic literature searches were conducted on five electronic databases from January 2015 to December 2024. Studies were eligible if they assessed sleep, moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity, light intensity physical activity, and sedentary time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Parents are integral in shaping early childhood health behaviors, and mobile health (mHealth) interventions offer an accessible method of supporting them in this role. Optimizing participant engagement is key to mHealth effectiveness and impact; however, research examining personal predictors of engagement remains underexplored.
Objective: We aimed to describe participant engagement with a novel parental mHealth intervention (Let's Grow) during the first 25 weeks of use and investigate whether engagement levels varied by family demographics and parental cognitions and behaviors relevant to the intervention.
BMC Psychol
July 2025
Background: Children's ability to regulate their emotions is a critical protective factor for early mental health and development and is strongly influenced by parenting. Parenting programs can improve these outcomes for children, however, most families, particularly those from diverse or disadvantaged backgrounds, never receive evidence-based support. There is a pressing need for parenting programs that are widely accessible and meaningfully tailored to individual needs and real-time parenting challenges to enhance parent engagement.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJMIR Public Health Surveill
June 2025
Background: Rapid weight gain (RWG) during infancy, defined as an upward crossing of one centile line on a weight growth chart, is highly predictive of subsequent obesity risk. Identification of infant RWG could facilitate obesity risk assessment from infancy.
Objective: Leveraging machine learning (ML) algorithms, this study aimed to develop and validate risk prediction models to identify infant RWG by the age of 1 year.
Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act
June 2025
Background: Parental-focused interventions often aim to improve child health behaviors by changing parenting practices and cognitions and supporting child skill development. These intermediary outcomes serve as milestones that indicate progress towards achieving the ultimate intervention goal; however, the impact on these is rarely reported. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a digital intervention, intended to help parents promote healthy movement behaviors in toddlers on these intermediary outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Previous research suggests that parenting confidence is important for child outcomes but what could influence parenting confidence is less clear. This study aims to examine associations between parental physical activity and general and physical activity-specific parenting confidence.
Methods: Baseline data from the Let's Grow randomised controlled trial of 1481 parents (1338 mothers and 143 fathers) were used.
J Act Sedentary Sleep Behav
June 2024
Background: Canada, Australia, the World Health Organization and other countries have released 24-hour movement guidelines for the early years which integrate physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and sleep, focusing on supporting children to achieve a healthy 24-hour day. The guideline evidence synthesis, however, highlighted the dearth of high-quality evidence, particularly from large-scale studies. The Sleep and Activity Database for the Early Years (SADEY) project aims to assemble a large, pooled database of 24-hour movement behaviours and health indicators in young children (birth to 5.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Behav Nutr Phys Act
February 2025
Background: Early childhood obesity prevention interventions that aim to change parent/caregiver practices related to infant (milk) feeding, food provision and parent feeding, movement (including activity, sedentary behaviour) and/or sleep health (i.e. target parental behaviour domains) are diverse and heterogeneously reported.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To quantitatively synthesize published evidence on the association between 24-hour movement behavior composition with adiposity in children and adolescents aged 3-18 years.
Methods: Systematic literature searches were conducted in five electronic databases to identify papers published between January 2015 and January 2024. A machine learning-assisted systematic review was conducted to identify studies applying compositional data analysis to examine the association between 24-hour movement behaviors and adiposity in children and youth.
Introduction: Despite increasing global migration, children from migrant backgrounds are underrepresented in physical activity research. This systematic review aimed to consolidate existing qualitative evidence on parental perceptions of the benefits, barriers, and facilitators of promoting physical activity and limiting sedentary behavior of their first- or second-generation migrant children aged 0-6 years.
Methods: Six electronic databases (Medline, CINAHL, PsycINFO, SPORTDiscus, Global, and Health EMBASE) were searched for qualitative peer-reviewed English language studies using terms covering migrants, parents, perceptions, physical activity, and sedentary behavior.
The primary objective of this research was to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of "Supper Heroes", a superhero-themed mobile health (mHealth) intervention designed to reduce food waste and increase plant-based protein food intake among families with children aged 9-14 in Ontario, Canada. A single arm, pre-post mixed methods design was used to evaluate the intervention. The 4-month mHealth intervention included 7 online modules with infographics, videos, and activities to help families reduce their food waste and eat more plant-based protein foods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChild Care Health Dev
January 2025
Background: The study examined the longitudinal associations of sleep time, restrained time, back time and tummy time with development in a sample of infants using compositional data analysis.
Methods: Participants were a subsample of 93 parent-infant dyads from the Early Movers project in Edmonton, Canada. Parents completed a 3-day time-use diary at 2, 4 and 6 months of age.
Background: Previously, we have reported on the efficacy and real-world effectiveness of a parent-oriented mobile health intervention (MINISTOP 1.0 and 2.0), which have shown improvements in pre-school children's lifestyle behaviours.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Rev Endocrinol
January 2025
Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand
September 2024
Introduction: Physical activity (PA) during pregnancy has numerous benefits, which may be mediated via effects on the immune system. However, supportive evidence is inconsistent and is mainly from studies in high-risk groups. We estimated the effect of PA during pregnancy on systemic inflammatory markers and cytokines in mothers recruited in the Barwon infant study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is limited evidence of the associations between postural-derived sitting time, waist-worn derived sedentary time and children's health and the moderation effect of physical activity (PA). This study examined associations of children's device-measured sitting time with cardiometabolic health risk factors, including moderation by physical activity.
Methods: Cross-sectional baseline data from children (mean-age 8.
Background: The first 2000 days of life are a crucial and opportunistic time to promote positive dietary and physical activity behaviours that can continue throughout life. The bulk of research on the impact of parents promoting positive dietary and physical activity behaviours has been on mothers, with the impact of fathers rarely investigated. The aim of this study is to investigate fathers' perceived role, self-efficacy and support needs in promoting positive dietary and physical activity behaviours in early childhood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Behav Nutr Phys Act
February 2024
Background: Improving physical activity and reducing sedentary behavior represent important areas for intervention in childhood in order to reduce the burden of chronic disease related to obesity and physical inactivity in later life. This paper aims to determine the cost-effectiveness of a multi-arm primary school-based intervention to increase physical activity and/or reduce sedentary time in 8-9 year old children (Transform-Us!).
Methods: Modelled cost-utility analysis, using costs and effects from a cluster randomized controlled trial of a 30-month intervention that used pedagogical and environmental strategies to reduce and break up sedentary behaviour (SB-I), promote physical activity (PA-I), or a combined approach (PA + SB-I), compared to current practice.
BMC Public Health
January 2024
Background: Although the health benefits of physical activity are well documented, certain priority populations are often disproportionately insufficiently active and at higher risk of poor health. Recreation centres have the potential to provide accessible and supportive environments for physical activity for all. However, little is known about priority populations' experiences of these venues and their views of how accessibility and inclusion can be optimised.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Whether toddlers (1-2 years) meet 24-hour Movement Guidelines and how parental practices and perceptions are related to compliance are uncertain. This study: a) estimated the proportion of toddlers meeting individual and combined movement guidelines; and b) examined associations between parental perceptions/practices and toddlers' compliance with movement guidelines.
Design: Cross-sectional study.
Background: Toddlerhood (2-3 years) is a crucial period for the development of physical activity, sleep, and emotional self-regulation skills. Although there is growing evidence of positive associations between physical activity, sleep, and emotional self-regulation in school-aged children, the associations in toddlers remain unclear. Thus, this study aimed to examine the association between physical activity, sleep, and emotional self-regulation in toddlers.
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