Not too sport heavy, not too sleep-deprived – finding the ‘just right’ balance in a child’s busy day can be a challenge and a world-first app could provide a much-needed solution.

Developed by University of South Australia in partnership with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, the Healthy-Day-App is helping parents understand which combination of activities can best help their child’s mental, physical, and academic wellbeing.

The accompanying study found that shifting 60 minutes of screen time to 60 minutes of physical activity resulted in 4.2 per cent lower body fat, 2.5 per cent improved wellbeing, and 0.9 per cent higher academic performance.

Lead researcher, Dr Dot Dumuid says the app will help parents and health professionals better understand the relationships between children’s time use, health, and academic outcomes.

“This app helps guide healthier behaviours. By tracking a child’s current activities over the day, and using the app to adjust these, we can model how any changes are expected to impact on their physical, wellbeing and academic performance.

“It’s a quick and easy tool that can predict health and wellbeing outcomes for children.”

Assessing 1685 data records from the Australian Child Health CheckPoint study (from children aged 11-12 years), the new app enables users to make hypothetical adjustments to time use behaviours.

It firstly requests users to input a child’s current 24-hour time usage across seven categories – sleep, screen time, physical activity, quiet time (such as reading or listening to music), passive transport (such as catching the bus), school-related time (including homework), and self/domestic care (chores/getting ready).

It also includes an advanced option for health professionals to account for puberty and social economic status.

Expected differences to body fat percentages, mental health, and academic performance are computed and displayed.

“The Healthy-Day-App lets parents, carers and health professionals consider possible changes to a child’s day and predict how this might impact health outcomes,” Dr Dumuid says.

“I encourage parents to play around with it – it may just make you reconsider how much screen time your child has in the car, in a café, waiting for an appointment … try it and see. It may surprise you.”

The Healthy-Day-App can be accessed at unisa.edu.au/Healthy-Day-App

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