Active living guidance

By using a whole-of-organisation approach that includes staff, students, families and the wider community, early childhood services and schools are ideally placed to improve health behaviours which can help prevent chronic disease, support better learning outcomes and set children and adults up with healthy habits for life. Early childhood services and schools are also workplaces and have a valuable opportunity to positively influence healthy behaviour of the people who spend time there (refer to guidance for workplaces).

The Achievement Program provides guidance and support for education settings to become healthier places for their communities. The program is a free initiative that identifies evidence-based actions to create healthier places, provides links to best-practice resources and case studies, and provides Victorian government recognition once applicable standards have been met.

Evidence-based actions that early childhood services or schools can take to encourage physical activity, reduce sedentary behaviour and become a healthier place include:

Encourage Victorian children and young people to use active modes of travel to and from school

Supporting children and young people to actively travel to and from school builds healthy habits early in life. Children and young people who actively travel engage in more physical activity than those who do not.

• Support active travel to and from the early childhood service or school, by providing appropriate change facilities and safe storage for bikes, scooters and helmets.
• Consider opportunities to work with local government to create marked routes to school that are safe for walking, cycling or scooting.

Resources on this topic include:

• Walk to school program, VicHealth Walk to school
• Ride-to-school program, Bicycle Network
• Toolbox, Bicycle Network
• Road Safety Education Victoria, VicRoads

Integrate formal and informal opportunities to increase physical activity and reduce sitting time within the school day

The provision of high-quality physical education and sport within the school curriculum is important for building a range of fundamental skills in young people including physical literacy skills. In addition to the formal curriculum, embedding opportunities for movement within the school day, such as unstructured play during recess and lunch, and movement integrated within academic classes, provides additional opportunities for activity.

• Consider how movement could be incorporated into learning times, such as introducing regular 'stand and stretch' breaks during desk-based tasks, chair alternatives for certain activities, for example, bean bags, exercise balls, or incorporating movement into learning tasks such as walking to measure distance.

Resources on this topic include:

• Health and Physical Education, Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority
• Active Schools, Department of Education
• Transform Us!, Deakin University
• Sporting Schools, Sport Australia
• The Australian Physical Literacy Framework, Sport Australia
• Addressing the decline in sport participation in secondary schools, Sport Australia
• Learning in Nature, Parks Victoria

Enable environments in schools and early learning facilities that promote an active life

Providing places to play in any weather and equipment that caters to diverse interests and abilities, for example sport, circus or dance equipment, can support increased activity. School environments also provide valuable community spaces that may present opportunities for local activity outside of school hours.

• Provide suitable spaces for active play during all types of weather, such as indoor activities and games for children to participate in during wet weather and/or extreme heat and have suitable play and sports equipment available for use during breaks.
• Consider the diversity and cultural practices of your community when planning physical activity opportunities to cater to their varied needs, interests and abilities.
• Use physical activity to provide opportunities to develop leadership skills through coaching or umpiring team sports.
• Offer opportunities for families to participate in activities, such as walking with children on local excursions or walkathons, including a parent's event at school sports competitions.
• Encourage families to make time for physical activity during the week and on the weekend, such as going for a walk or using public transport to travel.
• Consider making your schools facilities available for local families, sporting club training sessions and/or club games outside of school hours.

Resources on this topic include:

• Kids Building Future Healthy, VicHealth
• Playground safety information sheet, Kidsafe
• This Girl Can, VicHealth

Local government is ideally placed to develop, lead and implement local policies to influence many determinants of health. These policies include actions in areas such as transport, roads, parks, waste, land use, housing and urban planning, recreation and cultural activities, and creating safe public places. Local government is also a workplace (refer to guidance for workplaces).

Under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act, councils are required to protect, improve and promote public health and wellbeing within their municipality and prepare a Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plan (MPHWP) every four years. They have a broad role in health promotion, the provision of health services such as immunisation, early childhood services, services for older people and other services such as libraries.

Evidence-based actions that local government can take to encourage physical activity, reduce sedentary behaviour and become a healthier place include:

Plan and develop neighbourhoods to support active lifestyles

The built environment can enable, or be a barrier to, living an active life. Neighbourhoods that are walkable to a range of local services such as schools, sport and recreation facilities, public transport and destinations near people's homes, can encourage higher levels of physical activity. Changes to the built environment to encourage active living can occur at the macro-level, such as provision of quality open space and public transport; and micro-level, for example improved lighting, planting trees to make walking routes appealing, traffic calming measures to increase pedestrian and cyclist's safety, or provision of amenities within parks that encourage active living. Resources to support this include:

• VicHealth Local Government Partnership modules, Building Active Communities
• Active-by-Design, Heart Foundation
• 20 minute neighbourhood - case studies, Plan Melbourne 2050
• Fair Access Policy Roadmap, Office for Women in Sport and Recreation
• Design for everyone guide, Sport and Recreation Victoria
• Healthy Loddon Campaspe
• Victoria Walks – For professionals – information toolkit, Victoria Walks
• Developing a walking strategy: A guide for councils, Victoria Walks
• Evidence informed research papers, Victoria Walks
• Living Melbourne, Resilient Melbourne
• Community Road Safety Grants, VicRoads
• Bicycle infrastructure design, VicRoads

Community and health settings provide important opportunities to support and engage people in physical activity, particularly in reaching those facing additional barriers to active living. This includes people from lower socio-economic backgrounds, Aboriginal Victorians, women, senior Victorians, Victorians with disability, people with health conditions or physical limitations, and people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

Provide a range of local options that cater to the diverse needs of different groups and whole-of-community initiatives to support people to be physically active, particularly focusing on engaging those least likely to participate.

Adapting traditional physical activity offerings so they are welcoming, inclusive and responsive to local needs and diverse groups is critical. Resources to support this include:

• Future Active, VicHealth
• Inclusive sport and recreation, Sport and Recreation Victoria
• Welcome Walks, Parks Victoria
• Parkrun Australia, Parkrun
• This Girl Can, VicHealth
• Doing sport differently, VicHealth
• Heart Foundation Walking, Heart Foundation
• Medibank - Free and Active, Medibank
• Information about becoming a Living Longer Living Stronger provider (for local councils), Council on the Ageing
• Life! program, Diabetes Victoria
• HEALing Matters, Monash University for residential workers and carers supporting young people in out-of-home care

Health settings are also uniquely positioned to encourage and support Victorians to adopt healthy behaviours. Evidence suggests that advice provided by healthcare professionals, particularly medical professionals, is highly valued and may support behaviour change efforts:

• Prescribing and dosing exercise in primary care, Australian Journal of General Practice
• Exercise is Medicine Australia

Workplaces offer unique opportunities to promote health and wellbeing and create healthy working environments for staff in the places they spend the most of their time. Creating a healthy workplace helps staff make healthier choices and improves the culture of the organisation overall. Creating a healthy workplace can be complex but there are areas where a few vital behaviour changes can have a major impact and help staff participate, be well, be more productive, and contribute to the community.

The Healthy Workplaces Achievement Program provides guidance and support for workplaces to become healthier places for their employees. Funded by the Victorian Government and delivered by Cancer Council Victoria, it is a voluntary, free initiative that identifies evidence-based actions to create a healthy workplace. It links members to best-practice resources and examples against five health areas, one of which is physical activity. Local experts can help workplaces along their journey; and once the standards are met, workplaces receive Victorian Government recognition.

Evidence-based actions that a workplace can take to encourage physical activity, reduce sedentary behaviour and become a healthier place include:

Support workers to actively commute to and from work and actively travel through-out the workday when the opportunity presents

Melbourne public transport users achieve more than 40 minutes of incidental physical activity a day, compared with car users who achieve less than 10 minutes. Workplaces can also help to normalise active travel as the preferred option for short trips taken during the work day.

• Support active travel to and from the workplace, by providing appropriate change facilities and safe storage for bikes and helmets.
• Promote public transport options, walking and cycling routes near the workplace.
• Encourage workplace teams to participate in community initiatives that encourage physical activity, such as Get Active Victoria.

A resource to support this is Healthy Active by Design, Heart Foundation.

Introduce initiatives that encourage increased movement and reduced sitting time throughout the work day

Workplaces have become increasingly sedentary with many people spending long periods of time sitting at work. Workplaces can introduce policies and initiatives that encourage people to move more and reduce sitting time while at work.

• Encourage employees to reduce sitting periods where possible by providing sit-stand desks, holding stand up or walking meetings, promoting the use of stairs, and office layout that encourages employees to walk to printers and rubbish bins.
• Offer on-site exercise facilities, groups or classes or establish a regular walking group or explore opportunities to integrate walking within normal organisational business, such as walking meetings where appropriate.