Megan Hammersley

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Research Associate at University of Wollongong

Background Effective broad-reach interventions to reduce childhood obesity are needed, but there is currently little consensus on the most effective approach. Parental involvement in interventions appears to be important. The use of eHealth modalities in interventions also seems to be promising. To our knowledge, there have been no previous reviews...

Background Electronic health (eHealth) obesity programs offer benefits to traditionally delivered programs and have shown promise in improving obesity-related behaviors in children. Objective This study aimed to assess the efficacy of a parent-focused, internet-based healthy lifestyle program for preschool-aged children, who are overweight or at o...

Background The aim of this study was to describe the co‐creation and test the feasibility, acceptability and potential efficacy of an Out of School Hours Care (OSHC) staff professional development intervention to increase child adherence to moderate‐to‐vigorous‐intensity physical activity (MVPA) guidelines and fruit and vegetable (F&V) provision in...

Background Encouraging healthy eating and physical activity in children has long-term benefits for their health and development, however many do not meet the requirements for fruit and vegetable consumption, or physical activity. Experiential learning (EL) has been shown to improve children’s healthy eating and physical activity-related knowledge,...

Food and physical activity environments in family day care can be improved to better support healthy behaviors. A 6-month two-arm parallel randomized controlled trial evaluated the effectiveness of a web-based tool to promote healthier practices through quality improvement planning among Australian service providers and their educators. Service pro...

Objective Australian children fall short of national dietary guidelines with only 63% consuming adequate fruit and 10% enough vegetables. Before school care operates as part of Out of School Hours Care (OSHC) services and provides opportunities to address poor dietary habits in children. The aim of this study was to describe the food and beverages...

Background and aims Smoking cessation during pregnancy results in short‐ and long‐term health benefits for the mother and infant. Despite public health policies and initiatives to reduce smoking, smoking in pregnancy remains unacceptably high in Australia, particularly among populations of high disadvantage. Internationally, the use of financial in...

Issue Addressed Nutrition and physical activity practices in Australian family day care are suboptimal. A web‐based tool was co‐developed with family day care service providers and educators, health promotion staff and the New South Wales Ministry of Health to promote healthier nutrition and physical activity practices through an existing quality i...

Issue Addressed Out of School Hours Care (OSHC) is an important setting to promote healthy eating and physical activity. Between 2017 and 2018, The Eat Smart Play Smart (ESPS) resources were disseminated to OSHC services across New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The aim of this study was to evaluate the awareness and usability of ESPS to support OSH...

Issue Addressed Munch & Move is a New South Wales (NSW) Ministry of Health program offering family day care (FDC) educators training to support children's healthy behaviours. This study examined educators' nutrition, physical activity and screen time practices and relationships between Munch & Move training and professional development (PD) on thes...

As technology continues to advance, it is important to understand how website-based tools can support quality improvement. Website-based tools refer to resources such as toolkits that users can access and use autonomously through a dedicated website. This review examined how website-based tools can support healthcare professionals with quality impr...

Policy-level approaches are a promising and potentially powerful way to reduce sedentary behaviour at a population level. Ecological models have typically been used to reduce sedentary behaviour at a policy level. These focus on specific settings where policies may be present. This chapter examines home, workplace, education, transportation, health...

Background This systematic review examined the effectiveness of experiential learning interventions for improving children’s physical activity knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours. It also aimed to identify intervention characteristics that resulted in the greatest impact. Methods Four databases: Education Research Complete, Scopus, Web of Science...

Issue addressed: Dietary intake and physical activity behaviours of many Australian children are not meeting recommendations, particularly for those living in socioeconomically disadvantaged circumstances. This study aimed to design and assess the feasibility and acceptability of a suite of narrative videos and text messages focused on healthy eat...

Background Adolescents spend over 50% of a 24-hour period and 63% of the school day sedentary. Few comprehensive qualitative studies have explored teachers’ and students’ perceptions of potential strategies to reduce sedentary behaviour (SB) in the secondary school setting. This project aimed to elicit students’ and teachers’ perspectives of feasib...

This study aimed to examine associations between gross motor skills and executive functions (EF) in a large sample of Australian preschool-aged children. Of 566 children (mean age = 3.2 ± 0.4 years, 51.2% girls), locomotor, object control, and total skill competence were significantly associated with visual spatial working memory and inhibition ( p...

This systematic review assessed the correlates of children's dietary intake, physical activity and sedentary behavior in home-based childcare. A systematic search of five databases with articles published between January 2000 and July 2021 was conducted. Articles were included if they contained data from a home-based childcare (birth-5 years) setti...

Healthy eating and active living interventions targeting parents of young children could have benefits for both children and parents. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of two remotely delivered healthy eating and active living interventions delivered at scale to parents, in increasing parent vegetable and fruit consumption (pre-...

Introduction Out of school hours care (OSHC) is a fast-growing childcare setting in Australia, however the types of foods and beverages offered are relatively unknown. This study describes the food and beverages offered and investigates sector-level and setting-level factors which may impact OSHC in meeting the Australian Dietary Guidelines (ADG)....

BACKGROUND Parents are the primary decision makers of the foods prepared and offered to children. There is a strong association between parent and child fruit and vegetable intakes. Healthy eating and active living interventions targeting parents of young children could have benefits for both children and parents, however there is currently limited...

Objective Assess educators’ feeding practices and mealtime environments in family daycare services and examine the factors associated with educators’ feeding practices and mealtime environments. Methods Cross-sectional observational study of family daycare services (n = 33) in Australia. Best practices for mealtime environments and educator feedin...

Background Few translational trials have provided detailed reports of process evaluation results. Objective This study reported on findings from a mixed methods process evaluation of a large translational trial comparing 2 remotely delivered healthy eating and active living interventions with an active control, targeting parents of young children....

Experiential learning is the process where learners create meaning from direct experience. This systematic review aimed to examine the effects of experiential learning activities on dietary outcomes (knowledge, attitudes, behaviors) in children. Four databases: Education Research Complete, Scopus, Web of Science and PsychINFO were searched from dat...

This translation study assessed the effectiveness of two remotely delivered healthy eating and active living interventions for parents of 2- to 6-year-old children in improving child fruit and vegetable intake, non-core food intake, body mass index (BMI), physical activity, screen time, and sleep. Parents (n = 458) were recruited to a partially ran...

Background Opportunities for physical activity within out of school hours care (OSHC) are not well documented in Australia. This study explored factors associated with children (5–12 years) meeting 30 min of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) while attending OSHC in the afternoon period. Methods A cross-sectional study, conducted in 89...

Objective To assess the quality and quantity of foods and beverages provided to children aged 0-5 years in family day care and identify structural and sociodemographic factors associated with the nutritional quality of food provided. Design A cross-sectional study measured the food and beverages provided to children using weighed food records. The...

The home learning environment is a potential correlate of childhood obesity and obesity-related factors. We examined relationships between the home learning environment and weight status and the home learning environment and dietary intake, in a sample of 303 preschool-aged children from Australia. We measured their height and weight, and their par...

Background: Parents are key decision makers and role models in establishing and maintaining healthy behaviours in their children. Interventions involving parents have been shown to be more effective than those that do not, but there are barriers to participation. Efficacy trials have previously been conducted on two such parent-focussed healthy ea...

Objectives: The aim of this study was to explore factors which mediated or moderated the effect of the Time2bHealthy online program for parents of preschool-aged children on body mass index (BMI) change. Study design: Mediation and moderation analyses of data from a two-arm parallel randomised controlled trial. Methods: Randomisation was condu...

This study explored parental engagement, child BMI and secondary outcomes from the social media component of an online healthy lifestyle program for parents of preschool-aged children. Intervention group participants received access to an online program and Facebook group. Data were collected at baseline and 3- and 6-months follow-up. Facebook usag...

BACKGROUND E-Health obesity programs offer benefits to traditionally-delivered programs and have shown promise in improving obesity-related behaviors in children. OBJECTIVE To assess the efficacy of a parent-focussed internet-based healthy lifestyle program for preschool-aged children, who are overweight or at risk of becoming overweight, on child...

Background: There is an absence of studies exploring different goal-setting appraches and none which have examined the use of proxy goal-setting by parents for their children. Aim: To explore how proficient parents are in setting health behaviour goals for their children according to SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-fr...

Policy level approaches are a promising and potentially powerful way to reduce sedentary behaviour at a population level. Ecological models have typically been used to reduce sedentary behaviour at a policy level. These focus on specific settings where policies may be present. This chapter examines home, workplace, education, transportation, health...

Background: The use of parent-focused internet-based programs for the prevention and treatment of childhood obesity has shown promise but there is an acknowledged gap in parent-focused interventions which target the early childhood stage. Methods: The aim of this study is to determine the efficacy of Time2bHealthy - an online healthy lifestyle p...

AimTelephone health behaviour change interventions have shown potential as a medium for change. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a telephone behaviour change program on weight and physical activity. It was hypothesised that participants would achieve significant improvements in body mass index (BMI) and physical act...