Physical Activity Conference wrap-up from the Heart Foundation
Trevor Shilton from the Heart Foundation has posted a wrap-up of the recent Seventh National Physical Activity Conference. The conference was a part of be active ‘09, which also included the 2009 Australian Conference of Science and Medicine in Sport and the Sixth National Sports Injury Prevention Conference.
Below is Trevor’s article. Click here to visit the original poston the Heart Foundations website.
Seventh National Physical Activity Conference – Re-Activating Australia |
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Commentary by Trevor Shilton, Heart Foundation The Seventh National Physical Activity Conference was held in Brisbane across It is of course impossible to highlight all sessions and presenters in a brief report. So this report will focus on a few highlights from the perspective of the writer – reported under key conference themes. Brief History. The concept of National Physical Activity Conferences was started in Perth in 1995 where the Heart Foundation hosted a key conference that included visiting US keynotes Steven Blair and Jim Sallis and the cream of Australia’s established and emerging physical activity researchers, policy makers and practitioners. After three further conferences in Perth and Melbourne the Heart Foundation and Sports Medicine Australia (SMA) entered into an MOU that would enable the Physical Activity Conferences to become a bi-ennial feature of the Australian professional landscape and be offered alongside the Australian Conference on Science and Medicine in Sport from 2005. Under these arrangements the Heart Foundation nominates a chair from its National Physical Activity Committee. In 2009 Professor Adrian Bauman took on the role and was assisted in constructing the program by Wendy Brown, Trevor Shilton, David Dunstan, Cristy Henderson, Sue Aspinall, Vicki Gedge and Tony Okely. SMA support was provided by Gary Moorhead, and Davina Sanders. The program The conference program was offered across a diverse range of themes, reflecting the expansion maturity of the physical activity field in Australia. This was complemented by high quality keynotes, posters, symposia and a ‘great debate’ on the topic ‘Exercise is medicine’. Keynotes Our two visiting U.S Keynote speakers were widely acclaimed by delegates. Mark Fenton is an ex-US national race walker, an exercise scientist, a transport engineer, and more recently a physical activity and walking advocate with a passion for urban planning, restructuring the physical environment, and making places more walkable. It is easy to see how Mark has had success as a consultant to States and regions in North America around making cities more ‘physical activity friendly’. He is focused on ways of working across agencies and sectors to plan better urban environments. Mark Fenton demonstrated to us how while advocacy needs to be firmly rooted in science, it is also an art – where there is ample room for passion, perseverance and flair – and where the evidence you present can be enhanced by the ‘sound bite’ and style with which you deliver it. One of Fenton’s key messages was around three ‘Ps’ (Programs, Projects and Policy) together provide a multi-level intervention model, including both ‘stick’ and ‘carrot’ approaches. He stressed the importance of environments for children, providing them with opportunities to develop as ‘free range kids’, where they are free to play safely. His final message for us was to take the courage to advocate, particularly to key influencers of the physical environment such as land developers. He discussed how successful advocacy in tobacco control has led to a change in social norms and how we need a similar shift in social norms around being physically active. Marc Hamilton hails from the Pennington Biomedial Institute in Baton Rouge Louisiana and gave his keynote presentation on the much anticipated topic of ‘Inactivity physiology – A new paradigm for exercise science’. Hamilton challenged the audience with compelling data outlining what happens to our physiology in the 12-14 hours a day we are sitting. Acute effects – within 24 hours of prolonged sitting, include effects on lipid metabolism, lipoprotein lipase, insulin and inflammatory markers. These may also make an important contribution to chronic long-term health risks such as obesity, hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. Hamilton’s provocative proposition was that sitting too much is hazardous to your health. Furthermore, sitting too much is not the same as exercising too little, in fact he stressed that the risks from sitting behaviour is entirely separate to physical activity’s benefits, and should be seen as such. He demonstrated that the signals harming the body (molecular physiology) during sitting are not the same as the signals helping the body when exercising. David Dunstan and Neville Owen responded, providing an Australian perspective and the benefit of their own leading research in this area. Dunstan discussed AusDiab data demonstrating statistically-significant prospective relationships of television viewing time with all-cause and cardiovascular-specific mortality, over six years of follow-up. Owen discussed the measurement possibilities now offered by small, lightweight, unobtrusive accelerometers. This thought provoking session left the audience in no doubt that, despite the need for more research, reducing and/or breaking up sitting time is an emerging public health priority. We can envisage that in the near-term future Adult Physical Activity Guidelines would include three goals to:
Chris Rissel gave an elegant keynote presentation “More people cycling – personal and policy paths forward” in which he outlined why cycling should be a public policy priority. Rissel himself is an embodiment of research, policy and practice translation – an accomplished and highly published academic, he manages Health Promotion in an Area Health Service and therefore treads, on a day to day basis, the space between evidence, advocacy and practice. Rissel took us through the data and presented a persuasive business case for greater investment in cycling. He then outlined a blueprint for the kind of program and policy initiatives that would make the greatest difference. A maturing field in Australia The rest of the high-quality program at the conference was a testament to the maturity of the physical activity research community in Australia, and the high quality projects, interventions and policies that are being implemented. Evident among this are the emergence of numerous mature and well developed partnerships – among researchers and practitioners, and across settings, sectors and disciplines. The traditional strengths of this conference remained evident across sessions dealing with preventive health policy, chronic disease prevention, physical activity policy, obesity, cardiovascular disease prevention, mental health, ageing and injury. New fields and paradigms were included in a broad offering of sessions including diverse titles such as: Advocacy Environments Interventions Some of the ‘issues’ were elaborated in special symposia. These included a symposium titled ‘Physical activity and sustainability – Same destination, different pathways’ which brought together representatives from public health research, environment, sustainability, planning and cycling advocacy. The session was brought together by the chairman Trevor Shilton and discussant Neville Owen. A further symposium was held on the theme of ‘Research-practice translation’. Chairman Adrian Bauman brought together leading policy experts and academics to discuss this issue which is so vital to seeing our research bring about meaningful changes in communities. The conference ended with a spectacular “Great Debate” on the topic ‘Exercise is Medicine’, the highlights of which were Willem van Mechelen being drenched with a super soaker water pistol for going overtime [and saying it always rains in Amsterdam, water doesn’t affect him], and Mark Fenton taking off most of his clothes in his rebuttal, a debate winning strategy if ever there was one. The next conference. We now take a three year break in the lead-up to the 8th National Physical Activity Conference in Sydney in October 2012. The conference will again be held in conjunction with the SMA and will also be in conjunction with the 4th International Congress on Physical Activity and Health, the biennial meeting of the International society of Physical Activity and Health (ISPAH). The Heart Foundation would like to thank SMA, Conference Chair Adrian Bauman and the hard working Program Committee for another outstanding conference. These events play a vital role in advancing the field, showcasing our work and bringing us together for productive dialogue. Click here to visit the AusPAnet webpage.
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