Flinders University

26th of February, 2010

Schools are regularly provided with government and private based resources, relating to physical and nutrition oriented lifestyle programs. Some of these resources work, others do not.

The SHAPE conference will provide clarity around the resources ‘that work’. A range of physical education, health education, and physical activity and nutrition specialists will provide insights into the programs and resources most likely to have a positive impact on child health. They will also identify ways in which these resources can assist in the development of lifelong learning habits associated with ‘good’ physical activity and nutrition practices.

The conference will be of interest to physical and health educators as well as health promotion practitioners and policy developers.

Presenters

Professor Derek Colquhoun

Director of Research, Institute for Learning, and
Co-ordinator of the Food, Health and Education Research Group, University of Hull
Key Note Speaker

Professor Colquhoun has been involved in researching healthier lifestyles over many years. He edited the first Australian textbook on Health Promoting Schools; edited the first ever (global) conference proceedings on Health Promoting Schools (the Inaugural Australian Health Promoting Schools Association Conference in Melbourne) and has published and presented widely on the topic. Derek was the Victorian representative on the National Executive for the Australian Health Promoting Schools Association for several years. He has led significant multi-disciplinary and interprofessional research grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Research Council, the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, the Telematics Trust, the National Professional Development Programme, and the National College for School Leadership.

With Allan Kellehear he has edited two postgraduate texts on Health Research (with Chapman and Hall) and also been a member of the editorial team for the Annual Review of Health Social Science monograph on Methodological Issues in Health Research in 1993.

Derek has developed, conducted and led education evaluations for many years. He undertook his first evaluation of a Peer Education Nutrition programme in Melbourne, Australia as long ago as 1990. Later, he was a consultant to the very popular Food and Nutrition in Action project funded by the Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health. This project was initiated to support the nationally developed Health and Physical Education curriculum across Australia. In 1993 he received a World Health Organisation Research Scholarship to study Health Promoting Schools in Denmark. In 1998 he was contracted by the New Zealand Government to examine the new National Curriculum in Health and Physical Education and in 2000 he was awarded an Education Trust Leadership Award (Victoria) to examine how different models of School Governance impacted on Community Connectedness.

Over the years he has been a reviewer for most of the journals in the area as well as a research assessor for most relevant research grant bodies including the Norwegian Research Council.

More recently he has led evaluations of Healthy School Award Schemes in Liverpool and Devon in the UK and led the Food, Health and Education Research Group (FHEd) which has been invited to present its findings to the Rudd Centre for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, Jonkoping University in Sweden, the Danish University of Education, Deakin and Queensland Universities in Australia, Otago University in New Zealand, Cardiff Universityin Wales, and the University of Dundee in Scotland. In addition, the group have presented their research in Barcelona, Jonkoping, Lisbon, Bonn, Maastricht, Amsterdam, and Milan and are currently researching case studies and the relationship between education and health in Poland, Italy, Sweden, Germany and Cyprus.

Professor Colquhoun is an expert reviewer for the European Framework 7 Research Programme for the strand ‘Farm to Fork’. The FHEd Research Group recently hosted a 3 day trans-disciplinary workshop on the relationship between children's health and learning which was attended by academics, practitioners and policy makers from around the globe. The FHEd Research Group has been nominated by the University of Hull for a Queen's Anniversary Trust Award and in 2007 the Group won the Vice Chancellor's.

Associate Professor Jenny O'Dea

Associate Professor in Health Education & Nutrition
Faculty of Education & Social Work, University of Sydney
Key Note Speaker

Dr Jenny O'Dea is a dietitian, health and nutrition education researcher and Associate Professor in nutrition and health education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Sydney. She has been an Associate Editor for Health Education Research (Oxford University Press) for several years.

Dr O'Dea has a PhD in Medicine from the University of Sydney in which she focused on promoting positive eating attitudes and behaviours among adolescents.

Recent research from Dr O'Dea's group of collaborative researchers and students includes a national Australian Research Council study titled “Youth cultures of eating” and a 5-year study of children's participation in sport and physical activity. She has recently completed new research on two studies including the mothers of 2-6 year old children and their feeding behaviours as well as a 4 year study of the relationships between literacy, numeracy and health variables in primary and secondary school students. The results of these two recent studies add to the research about the important role of health educators, health professionals, teachers, parents and the media in the promotion of healthy behaviours and attitudes among young people.

Dr O'Dea has conducted several large research studies into body image, weight issues, self-concept, self esteem, and eating issues among children, adolescents and college students, many of which have been published in international journals.

Dr O'Dea is also well known for her contributions to the media and public debate about food, nutrition, self esteem, body image and health as a long-time advocate of commonsense and a sensible, balanced, evidence-based viewpoint when it comes to food, nutrition, eating and child health.

She is the author of four books, including “Positive food for Kids” and her latest, “Everybody's Different: a positive approach to teaching about health, puberty, body image, nutrition, self esteem and obesity prevention”

Mr Jeff Emmel

Executive Director, Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation
Invited Speaker

Jeff Emmel has been a teacher, lecturer, curriculum developer, professional development facilitator and administrator in the Personal Development, Health and Physical Education area for many years. Before taking on the ACHPER National Executive Director role, he was involved in the restructuring of Senior Secondary Courses as the Health and Physical Education Curriculum Officer of the Senior Secondary Assessment Board of South Australia. He was Head of the South Australian Health and Physical Education Curriculum Unit in the South Australian Education Department and worked at a senior level in this department for more than fifteen years.

While leading ACHPER, Emmel has managed highly successful projects of national significance involving curriculum research and development and professional development in physical activity and health related initiatives including drug and alcohol education. He was part of the consortium that managed development of the highly acclaimed National Mind Matters Mental Health Project for schools.

Jeff Emmel has been able to work with professionals in all sectors and to observe developments within the profession from a number of perspectives. He continues to critique contemporary issues including government policy and performance regarding national curriculum and standards of curriculum, leadership and teaching in schools and universities.

Dr Jim Dollman

Senior Lecturer, School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia
Invited Speaker

Dr Jim Dollman has a growing track record in the area of physical activity measurement, as well as the predictors and consequences of regular physical activity in young people. He has contributed to several steering committees and technical advisory groups for surveys, interventions and policy development initiatives at the state and national levels.

Specific responsibilities and achievements include:

Manager of the Physical Activity and Anthropometry component of the National Children's Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey, 2007 (‘Kids Eat Kids Play’), an Australia-wide survey of 2–16 year olds.
Since 1997, coordination of 4 South Australia-wide surveys of children's physical activity and fitness.
Academic advisor for the physical activity component of the Eat Well be Active community intervention, sponsored by the South Australian Department of Health.
Currently co-chair of the Physical Activity Measurement Special Interest Group, within the Australasian Child Obesity Research Network (ACAORN).
In the last 10 years, publication of over 40 journal articles and book chapters related to physical activity measurement and behaviours, as well as body composition.
Currently a chief investigator on two ARC Linkage grants and one NHMRC grant.

Mr Mark Williams

State Manager, Obesity Prevention and Lifestyle (OPAL) Program, SA Health
Invited Speaker

Mark has been committed to ‘healthy lifestyles’ for a lifetime. A PE teacher originally (when tight shorts were de rigueur), Mark moved into Occupational Rehabilitation during the 1990s. He completed a Masters in Exercise Physiology at Flinders and soon found himself involved in Talent Identification at the SA Sports Institute. From there it was a short hop, skip and jump to the Health Promotion Unit where he learned of the Ottawa Charter and much, much more.

As the Chief Project Officer for Physical Activity in the Department of Health in the early 2000's Mark worked on some key initiatives – be active for one and the SA Adult Physical Activity Survey for another. A move to the Department of Education and Children's Services saw Mark initiate the Premier's be active Challenge. He also spent some time managing the DECS Sport, Swimming and Aquatics program. Mark is currently the State Manager for OPAL, the most significant healthy weight initiative of its sort in SA history.