Engaging with young people to Motivate + Activate physical activity

With less than 25% of Australian children aged 5 – 17 years meeting the recommended amount of physical activity each day, it is more important than ever to work with young people to co-design the right type of messaging and campaigns that will get them moving more.

Working in collaboration with the Children’s Health Queensland Hospital and Health Service School Based Youth Health Nurse Service team, we delivered Motivate + Activate workshops with more than 50 students from Woodridge State High School and Kelvin Grove State College during August 2024.

The Motivate + Activate pilot program is an action under the Making Healthy Happen 2032 Strategy. Support from the schools and school-based youth health nurses, enabled the interactive workshops to positively engage students in a process that genuinely welcomed and encouraged their insights as young people. This included exploring real-world issues that prevent them from being active.

The students told us that friends play a pivotal role in whether teenagers remain physically active or not, and when physical activity involved their friends, they were more likely to get involved. Students also spoke to the barriers of cost, accessibility, and the pervasive distraction of social media on their ability to prioritise physical activity.   

These valuable insights will help us to consider and shape how we engage and inspire young people to move more and be active across Queensland. We look forward to sharing further outcomes from these workshops as we work with the students to develop their ideas into real-world digital content.