Reboot!

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Physical activity is vitally important for child health, development and learning. Active kids are more likely to become active adults and this benefits us all, with reduced burden on our health systems. Yet we know that Australian children are not moving enough to see these benefits. Since the inception of the Australian Physical Activity Report Card in 2014, our national and state surveillance data has consistently shown overall physical activity levels score a D-. This means that fewer than one third of our children are meeting the national guidelines for the recommended levels of daily physical activity needed for optimal health and wellbeing. We need to be doing more to get our kids moving!

This year’s Report Card provides very similar gradings to prior Report Cards (released in 2014, 2016, and 2018). Grades remain unchanged from the 2018 Report for Overall Physical Activity (D-), Organised Sport and Physical Activity Participation (B-), Active Transport (D+), Screen Time (D-), Family and Peers (C+), Community and the Built Environment (A-), and Physical Fitness. Active Play again received a grade of incomplete given a lack of a national benchmark and data to assess this indicator. There was a modest improvement in the grade for Strategies and Investments, graded C- compared to D in 2018, primarily due to an increase in state and territory investment in facilitating children’s physical activity participation. The Report Card has previously graded two separate indicators of School and Physical Activity Participation in Schools. This year these indicators were combined to align with the Global Matrix. The single indicator for School received a reduced grade of C+, down from B+ (School) and B (School and Physical Activity Participation in Schools) in 2018. This reduction can be attributed to new state-based data on the proportion of schools implementing the mandated time in planned physical activity at school and to national data on the proportion of schools with specialist PE teachers. Again, to align with the Global Matrix which does not grade Movement Skills, this indicator was not included in the current Report Card.

The theme of this year’s Report Card, ‘REBOOT! Reimagining physically active lives’, highlights the opportunity that the global COVID-19  pandemic has brought, as a catalyst to reassess and reboot ideas and possibilities around children’s physical  activity and how to create more physically active lifestyles for all. While restrictions brought about by the pandemic generally resulted in children being less physically active than before, there have also been changes in how children are physically active. It is these changes and innovations that hold promise for children’s physical activity moving forward. In particular, changes that should be retained and built upon include: the embracing of leisure activities such as walking and cycling, including new infrastructure; a focus on being active in nature and neighbourhood green spaces; and innovations in the use of technology to support physical activity in the home. We now have a unique opportunity to capture these positive changes and integrate them with what we know works from before.

There is real optimism for the future and for opportunities to improve the physical activity levels of our children, and their health and wellbeing across the lifespan. We need to work together and grab this window of opportunity to benefit Australia’s children.