Power the Movement to Get Kids Moving
Every parent and family are most concerned about their children’s health and well-being, but those won’t be reflected in their school’s report cards. How about a regularly updated report card that shows you various indicators evaluating how healthy your child’s lifestyle is? This is the international initiative that HKBU researcher Dr Wendy Huang, Associate Professor of the Department of Sport, Physical Education and Health, has been working on since she joined the HKBU Faculty of Social Sciences in 2014.
When Wendy was a post-doctoral fellow, she was inspired by the global leader of Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance in Scotland in 2013. She put her plans into action after she joined HKBU, and started working out the Hong Kong report cards on Physical Activity for children and adolescents – showing how various daily activities like physical activity and influential factors like family and peers are affecting their health and well-being.
Wendy’s leading role in Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance
First established in 2014, the Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance is a non-profit organisation of researchers, health professionals and stakeholders who work together to advance physical activity in all children and adolescents from around the globe.
Under the latest Global Matrix 4.0, almost 700 experts from around the globe were involved in producing 57 country report cards. The resulting “Global Matrix” of grades revealed global patterns and modern lifestyles which contribute to public health problems.
Hong Kong is one of the participating parties, and Wendy is one of the two leaders of the Active Healthy Kids Hong Kong Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Adolescents.
Compared with others, Hong Kong gets a relatively better result in “Active Transportation”.
Hong Kong’s report card grades under the Global Matrix 4.0 released in 2022.
Wendy started to work on report cards targeting primary and secondary school students. There are ten indicators (including overall physical activities and sedentary behaviours) and influential factors (such as parents, schools, community and environment, government policies and resources), which are shared by all international participating parties. Based on the given rubric and recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO), the report cards showed the percentage of students achieving the benchmarks, resulting in the letter grades from A+ to F. The scores are updated every two to four years to reflect the trend of each region/country, serving as policy drivers for schools and government, and convincing references for parents to adjust their practices and behaviours.
Wendy’s RGC RFS Awarded Project & the HK exclusive indicators
Leveraging her experience and success of the previous report cards focusing on primary and secondary school students, and her other research projects relating to preschool children’s health and lifestyles (like social jetlag, sleeping habits and physical activity), Wendy decided to extend her studies to children under 5 years of age. “Power the Movement to Get Kids Moving: Development and Evaluation of a Report Card on Active Healthy Lifestyle for the Early Years” was her project which was awarded Research Grants Council (RGC) Research Fellow Scheme (RFS) 2023/24. “I’m grateful for the support and advice from the University, the faculty and the department. There have been terrific sharing sessions, opportunities and incentives available in HKBU,” said Wendy.
Transforming from only focusing on day-time physical activity and sedentary behaviour, sleep will also be included in this new initiative. With the aim to achieve a healthy 24-hour life for preschool children, Wendy is currently working towards panel consensus on the appropriate indicators applicable for this age group.
Challenges and Solutions
Apart from the challenging indicator selection, Wendy is striving towards the recruitment of young researchers who are interested in this field. “I am lucky to have established a strong network with the local universities’ researchers, experts in early childhood as my new collaborators, and the international leader from Canada as my project consultant. But I am on my way looking for young researchers from physical activity, public health, and exercise science for my cross-disciplinary project,” said Wendy.
Impact and Implications
“Based on my background in applied research, I hope my research project could have a societal impact. Other than the result, personal fulfilment received in the research process is equally important to me. I enjoy doing what I am really interested in,” said Wendy, an observant, meticulous and thoughtful researcher who aims for win-win situations for her collaborators and research students.
Upon the release of the three Hong Kong Report Cards for school-aged students from 2016 to 2022, the impact has been seen within and beyond academia. The report cards have been utilised by researchers of various institutions as a source of evidence for grant applications. The local government reports also mentioned them as evidence for initiating and advocating programmes. In future, Wendy will target more systematic approaches for impact evaluation.
About the Researcher
Dr Wendy Huang’s research areas are physical activity and sedentary behaviours for preschool-aged and school-aged children. In particular, her research focuses on understanding the determinants of these behaviours, exploring interrelationships among movement behaviours, and promoting an active healthy lifestyle.
Wendy serves as the Associate Editor of the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, and Journal of Exercise Science & Fitness. She is a member of the Grant Review Board of the Research Council, Health Bureau of the Government of the Hong Kong SAR, the Board of Directors of the Asian Society for Adapted Physical Education and Exercise (ASAPE), and the Treasurer of the Society for Adapted Physical Activity of Hong Kong, China (HKSAPA).