Researcher Dr. Mark Tremblay will be a guest speaker at the University of Lethbridge Friday at 1 p.m.
Tremblay is a senior scientist at Ontario’s Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group, which is a part of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, and president of the Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance.
Tremblay is also collaborating with Dr. Richard Larouche, an associate professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the U of L, on a global study to measure children’s physical activity levels.
According to the World Health Organization, physical activity helps children and adolescents build strong bones, encourages healthy growth, and improves motor and cognitive development. Yet, it is estimated 80 percent of adolescents don’t meet recommended levels of physical activity.
Measuring physical activity levels in children in various countries can be complicated. Some countries may have well-developed sport and recreation programs, while children in other countries may participate more in unstructured activities. International comparisons are currently limited by inconsistent measurement procedures and a lack of global data on children under 11 years of age.
“Great insights for intervention strategies can be gathered through international comparisons of how children and adolescents accumulate physical activity,” says Tremblay. “The federally funded Global Adolescent and Child Physical Activity Questionnaire project being led out of the U of L is allowing for this possibility.”
The scientists are leading a 25-plus member team of researchers to develop a standardized app-based questionnaire to assess physical activity in children and adolescents. The app is currently being tested in 16 countries.
Tremblay’s talk is titled Global research on children’s physical activity: examples, challenges and opportunities.
