Celebrating a decade of the Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance and its Global Matrix initiative

Research continues to demonstrate that participating in regular physical activity (PA) is indispensable for maintaining health and fitness across the lifespan. Nevertheless, global trends in child PA show consistent declines,1 especially over the past 30 years.2 Currently, the global state of PA surveillance is inadequate and inconsistent. Intercontinental PA initiatives assessing children and adolescents differ greatly, resulting in contradictory internation comparisons.3 Resource-limited countries, younger children, those not attending school, children and adolescents with disabilities or chronic conditions and those from rural areas are generally under-represented or not represented.3 This continues despite calls to establish systematic PA surveillance from infancy onwards to inform public health policy and practice.4 The global transition to the current low levels of habitual PA observed among children and adolescents, beginning in the second half of the last century, now limits progress towards several sustainable development goals, undermines non-communicable disease prevention and increases healthcare costs. Lower childhood PA levels may also increase reliance on motorised transport and can hinder national responses to climate change.