Background and objectiveDespite the known health benefits of physical activity (PA), pregnancy is a time of marked decline in PA levels. To provide women with reliable and trustworthy information, and to encourage greater participation in PA during pregnancy, many governments have developed guidelines for PA during pregnancy. Our aim was to synthesise the most recent public health guidelines on PA during pregnancy from different countries in order to understand the nature and extent of advice that is available.DesignScoping review.Data sourcesSearch of the grey literature, direct contact with international experts, screening of relevant academic literature and citation searching.Eligibility criteriaPublic health guidelines developed or endorsed by government departments published since 2010.ResultsOur search located 30 eligible guidelines, published in 11 different languages. There is remarkable concordance in the advice offered. For women with uncomplicated pregnancy, guidelines recommend: 150–300 min/week of moderate intensity aerobic activity; pelvic floor and muscle strengthening exercises; modification of some exercises (eg, supine position); and provide lists of warning signs to cease activity (eg, persistent dizziness, vaginal bleeding) and activities that should be avoided (eg, if high risk of falling/collision). Few guidelines offer specific advice for highly active women (eg, athletes), or trimester-specific or culturally specific considerations.ConclusionsThis review provides a summary of public health recommendations for PA during pregnancy around the world. The challenge is now to ensure that all who provide healthcare for women understand the guidelines and encourage safe participation in PA during pregnancy.

Background: Physical activity (PA) promotes health and well-being. For students, university represents a transitional period, including increased independence over lifestyle behaviors, in addition to new stressors and barriers to engaging in PA. It is, therefore, important to monitor PA trends in students to gain a greater understanding about the role it might play in physical and mental well-being, as well as other factors, such as attainment and employability. Methods: Cross-sectional surveys were conducted in 2016 in Scottish universities and colleges, and in 2017 in universities and colleges across the United Kingdom, and the data were pooled for the present study (N = 11,650). Cumulative ordinal logistic regression was used to model the association between PA levels and mental and personal well-being, social isolation, and perceptions of academic attainment and employability. Results: Only 51% of the respondents met the recommended levels of moderate to vigorous PA per week. There was a linear relationship between PA levels and all outcomes, with better scores in more active students. Conclusions: UK university students are insufficiently active compared with the general population of 16- to 24-year olds. Yet, students with higher PA report better outcomes for mental and personal well-being, social isolation, and perceptions of academic attainment and employability.

Heart rate, energy expenditure, and affective responses from children participating in trampoline park sessions compared with traditional extra-curricular sports clubs. SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS Lack of physical activity is widely becoming a concern in younger populations. Inactivity has negative associations with quality of life, in addition to children's academic, social, and physical skills. Further, it may predispose them to poorer health later in life. For most children physical education and extracurricular activities delivered through school are the most apparent opportunities for engagement in physical activity.  However, opportunities for physical activity exist outside of the school environment per se and a place that has seen an increase in popularity in recent years are trampoline parks. The emotional state (feelings) of a child during physical activity is thought to be related to their enjoyment and potentially adherence. Trampoline parks are typically thought of as being exciting adventure based activity and so it was of interest to examine both the heart rate and energy expenditure, in addition to affect, of children taking part in both extracurricular sports (football and netball) compared to a trampoline park session. A group of 26 children (aged 6-11 years, 16 girls and 10 boys) took part in the study.They wore heart rate belts during the activities and gave a rating of their feelings after them too. Data was collected from 3 sessions of both extracurricular sports in addition to trampoline park sessions. The results showed heart rate and energy expenditure were higher during trampoline park sessions, though both activities were classed as moderate-vigorous physical activity. Further, both activities elicited feelings of 'excitement'. Both extracurricular sports clubs and trampoline parks may be viable options for children to engage in physical activity that is sufficiently 'intense' and related to positive feelings. SCIENTIFIC ABSTRACTBackground: Lack of physical activity (PA) is becoming an issue in younger populations. Trampoline parks are newly popular environments for PA yet research on their use is scarce. Thus the present study compared heart rate, energy expenditure, and affective responses in children participating in trampoline park sessions compared with extracurricular sports clubs. Methods: Children (aged 6-11 years; n = 16 females, n = 10 males) participated in 3 trampoline park sessions and 3 extracurricular sports club sessions lasting ~45 minutes over 3 weeks. Heart rate, energy expenditure, and affective responses through the circumplex model, were measured. Results: Both conditions elicited moderate-vigorous PA. Average heart rate (mean difference [95%CIs] = 27.6 fc [23.5 to 31.8]), peak heart rate (mean difference [95%CIs] = 24.2 fc [20.8 to 27.6]) and energy expenditure (mean difference [95%CIs] = 3.2 kcals.min -1 [2.7 to 3.6]) were all significantly higher for the trampoline sessions. Affective responses for both conditions elicited feelings of 'excitement'. Conclusio...

Background: To support the strategy development for communication of the updated physical activity (PA) guidelines, the UK Chief Medical Officers’ Expert Panel for Communication was created. Methods: To help inform this process, a rapid review was performed to identify and describe how other nations are communicating their PA guidelines and PA generally. Elements of the health-enhancing physical activity policy audit tool created by the World Health Organization were used to investigate all 195 countries. Results: Seventy-seven countries had their own guidelines; 53 used the World Health Organization guidelines, and for 65 countries, no guidelines could be found. For the communication, 27 countries used infographics; 56 had government policies/documents, and 11 used a mass media campaign. Only 6 of these had been evaluated. Although many countries used infographics, there were no associated evaluations. As such, any future communication strategies should incorporate an evaluation. Mass media campaigns had the strongest evidence base, proving to be an effective strategy, particularly when incorporating aspects of social marketing. Conclusion: This review provides an insight into strategies countries worldwide have taken to communicate PA guidelines and PA promotion. These should be carefully considered when deciding how best to communicate and promote PA guidelines.

Physical activity (PA) is considered essential to overall health, yet it is consistently reported that children worldwide are failing to meet the recommended levels. Affective responses are a potential predictor of long-term PA engagement due to their bidirectional relationship with PA. One way to influence the affective response to PA may be to influence the environment in which it takes place; a method of doing this is to immerse children using a narrative with characters. The aim of this research was to compare the effects of using a Disney branded, compared to a non-branded, PA session on children’s post activity affective responses and perceived effort of PA. 32 children participated (aged between 4-11 years) and they each completed four sessions of branded activities, and four sessions of unbranded activities. The results showed that children had similar positive affective responses and perceived effort to branded and unbranded activities, and qualitative feedback from parents supported this. However, a secondary finding from qualitative thematic analysis was that parents considered branding a key contributing factor to children’s enjoyment and the effort they put into the PA sessions. Future research into influencing the affective response through the environment should carefully consider how to capture this during the activity. Lastly, the research was conducted during the period of the COVID-19 lockdown and so should be interpreted in this context. Conceptual replication outside of this should be an aim of future research.