Practical steps needed to achieve impact of the WHO 2019 movement behaviour guidelines for children under the age of 5: the SUNRISE Study Europe Group evaluation

The World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines for the ‘24-h movement behaviours’1 (physical activity (PA), sedentary behaviour (SB) including screen time, and sleep) in the under-5s were published in April 2019 (Supplementary Figure S1).2 The guidelines were developed as a response to the childhood obesity pandemic,2 to help ensure that under-5s have healthy levels of PA, screen time, and sleep. Evidence review and synthesis showed that these behaviours influenced a wide range of other outcomes, with substantial short-term and long-term consequences (e.g., cognitive, social and emotional development; language development; cardiometabolic health; bone and skeletal health; motor development; physical fitness; growth; and wellbeing).2

Five years later, it is now appropriate to test whether key actions in response to these guidelines were taken across Europe, and to consider ways of increasing the impact of the WHO Guidelines across Europe in the next 5 years. Therefore, the SUNRISE Study Europe Group considered three tests to examine if European public health policy and clinical practice were sufficiently responsive to the WHO Guidelines: (1) Do European nations have national guidelines for the movement behaviours in the under-5s or have they adopted/adapted the WHO Guidelines? (2) Do they have adequate surveillance of the movement behaviours in these age groups? (3) Do they have specific movement behaviour policies for children under-5?