Kids In Child Care Need Healthy Movement - And Guidelines Can Improve Their Health

(MENAFN- The Conversation) Healthy movement behaviours support young children's physical, mental and social development, and shape lifelong habits . These habits include engaging in physical activity, reducing sedentary screen time and obtaining sufficient sleep, including naps.

National 24-hour movement guidelines for children exist in Canada, with recommendations on physical activity, sedentary and screen time and sleep.

Nevertheless, only 13 percent of young children in Canada are meeting these guidelines.

Over one million young children (aged birth to five years) in Canada attend child care, spending most of their weekday waking hours in these settings. The number of children enrolled in child care is projected to rise with the rollout of the national Early Learning and Child-Care Plan , which comes with reduced fees for parents.

Child-care settings play an influential role in healthy movement behaviours and early childhood development, offering a unique and primary environment for supporting these behaviours - and a prime location to enact movement guidelines. Despite this, discrepancies remain in the quality of child care across Canada, and only the Northwest Territories and British Columbia specify a duration of required physical activity in their regulations.

We are researchers in the Child Health and Physical Activity Lab at Western University. Our work is concerned with supporting child-care educators in providing healthy movement behaviour environments for the children in their care.

Read more: Kids' physical activity before age 5 matters so much because of the developing brain

Movement guidelines

Guidelines help to establish clear expectations for the operation of child-care centres, promoting consistent and high-quality care. They also provide direction and objectives for educators, supporting their understanding of responsibilities and effective practices. Research shows that children in centres with formal physical activity guidelines are more active , demonstrating the value of guidelines in promoting healthy behaviours in child-care settings.

Children in child-care centres with formal physical activity guidelines are more active. (Paris Lopez/Unsplash)

Using the best available evidence and expert consensus, with partners, we have created the first ever Canadian Best Practice Guidelines for Healthy Movement Behaviour in Childcare.

Partners including national child-care organizations (Canadian Child Care Federation , Childcare Resource and Research Unit , Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario ); public health agencies (City of Hamilton Public Health , Grey Bruce Public Health , Ottawa Public Health ); ParticipACTION ; Métis Nation of Ontario Early Learning and Child Care ; as well as other research experts and child-care educators.

The guidelines were developed using a rigorous and inclusive approach. Key steps in the development process included:

• Hosting a national consensus meeting with child-care organizations, public health agencies, research experts and child-care educators to collaboratively determine direction, content and priorities;

• Drafting guidelines based on the consensus meeting discussions, along with key national and international documents in this area: the World Health Organization's standards for healthy eating, physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep in early childhood education and care settings; British Columbia's active play standard ; a similar Australian active play standard and our lab's previously developed PLAY policy .

• Distributing a survey among attendees of the consensus meeting, as well as broader experts and advocates in the field, to gather feedback and assess agreement on the draft guidelines; and,

• Finalizing the guidelines based on expert feedback via the survey responses.

The resulting guidelines serve as a series of best practices for educators, program directors and child-care centres to promote healthy movement behaviours.

From guidelines to practice

While guidelines are important, simply introducing new guidelines may not be enough to effectively improve healthy movement behaviours in child care.

Rather, combining guidelines with professional development designed to enhance educators' skills and confidence to provide movement opportunities may help effectively put guidelines into practice.

However, importantly, few educators across Canada receive training relating to healthy movement; many also report limited knowledge and confidence in their ability to lead physical activity in their roles.

To address this issue, our lab created the TEACH e-Learning course , focused on promoting physical activity, limiting sedentary screen time and supporting the development of children's fundamental movement skills within child-care centres.

Read more: Kids' physical activity in child care is essential - how an online course equips educators to lead the way

The course, developed with educators and movement experts , has been tested across Canada. It's led to significant improvements in educators' knowledge, confidence, sense of control and intentions related to movement behaviour practices with the young children in their care.

The course, alongside the guidelines, may better equip educators to confidently implement movement opportunities for children.

A child plays at the Blessed Chiara Badano Child Care Centre in Stouffville, Ont., May 2, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette Guidelines in action

The next steps for the best practice guidelines will involve testing them, with the TEACH e-Learning course, in participating child-care centres across Ontario.

Piloting and testing is required to assess the guidelines' acceptability and feasibility, which could lead to modifications. This will also help to determine whether this approach leads to changes in child-care environments, educator practices and children's movement.

Once the final stages of testing and evaluating the guidelines are completed, they will be made publicly available and freely accessible on our lab's website . Our vision is that Canada-wide child-care centres can benefit from this resource.

Child care in Canada is at a pivotal point with implementation of the 2021 Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Plan . This draws on the earlier (2017) Multilateral Early Learning and Child Care Framework's principles: affordability, accessibility, quality and inclusivity. This government initiative works towards ensuring all children have access to high-quality early learning and child care that supports their development and lifelong well-being.

The best-practice guidelines support this vision as a critical aspect of creating more active and health-promoting child-care centres to best support the health and development of young children across the country.

This article was co-authored with Emily Sussex , an undergraduate summer research intern in the Child Health and Physical Activity Lab.

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