About

Healthy Youngsters, Healthy Dads (HYHD) is an evidenced-based program which improves the healthy lifestyle behaviours of fathers and their pre-school aged children. HYHD provides fathers with the knowledge, motivation and parenting strategies to engage with their children and become role models to improve physical activity levels, dietary behaviours and weight status of both themselves and their children.

The program involves 8 weekly 75 minute sessions, usually run on Saturday mornings. The HYHD sessions are broken up into two sections, including:

  1. 20-minute educational session on the weekly theme (e.g. rough and tumble play, fruit, vegetables, sport skills, screen time etc.)
  2. Fun and active 55-minute practical session, focusing on sports skills (e.g. throwing, catching, kicking), rough & tumble play and fun fitness activities.

Fathers also attend 2 x 2-hour ‘dads-only’ information workshops held on Thursday evenings between 6.30-8.30pm. These workshops teach the fathers evidence-based parenting skills to optimise their child’s physical activity, dietary behaviours and social-emotional wellbeing. The program is delivered by accredited HYHD facilitators, trained by Prof. Philip Morgan at the University of Newcastle.

For more information about becoming a HYHD facilitator, go to Facilitator Section.

HYHD builds on the success of our father-focused award-winning ‘Healthy Dads, Healthy Kids’ and the Daughters and Dads Active and Empowered programs which have been improving the health of families since 2008. The HYHD program has been designed and evaluated by Professor Phil Morgan and his multi-disciplinary team at the University of Newcastle. Prof. Philip Morgan’s team is the only group internationally delivering father-focused programs to improve children’s physical activity and dietary behaviours. The program was built on seed funding from the Rotary Club of Newcastle and the Hunter Medical Research Institute, and has been made possible by the ongoing generous support received from the Greater Charitable Foundation.

We are looking for dads and their youngsters

Are you a dad who wants to spend quality time with your child participating in fun physical activities, whilst learning how to improve their sport skills, health and wellbeing…along with your own?

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