Craig Williams
Director of CHERC

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.88.9

The Children’s Health and Exercise Research Centre (CHERC) at the University of Exeter is celebrating its 25th anniversary as a centre devoted to the study of the exercising child and adolescent and the promotion of young people’s health and well-being. It is recognised as one of the world’s leading centres for paediatric exercise physiology. Research produced by CHERC has had a national and international impact on raising public awareness of child health issues and has shaped policy development. The centre played host to the international bi-annual Pediatric Work Physiology conference in 2011, having previously hosted it in 1997 – the only research centre to have this honour twice.

Founded on a desire to acquire child-specific data, Neil Armstrong identified for the first time the prevalence of coronary risk factors in British children and examined them in relation to cardiovascular fitness and habitual physical activity. The physical activity data demonstrated that many children had adopted sedentary lifestyles. Physical activity patterns and cardiovascular fitness were subsequently investigated in relation to diet, body fat, obesity, visceral fat, diabetes and hypertension.

Findings widely disseminated through the national/international popular press and academic journals and conferences have significantly influenced policy, on issues related to children’s health and well-being, and were recognised by the award of the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher Education. The Anniversary Prize was the first to be awarded in the exercise and sport sciences.

Over the years, CHERC studies have raised numerous methodological problems regarding the measurement and interpretation of physiological variables during growth and maturation and the examination of these issues has been a major focus. For example, we challenged the conventional interpretation of aerobic fitness during growth and maturation in a series of studies that found that, when body mass was appropriately controlled, boys’ peak oxygen uptake progressively increases with age and girls’ values increase into the teen years with no evident decline into young adulthood. Using multi-level modelling to analyse longitudinal data, on 12–17 year olds, we demonstrated that both chronological age and stage of maturation were explanatory variables of peak oxygen uptake independent of body size and composition and that conventional analyses had obscured the independent relationship between aerobic fitness and maturation. Other research into training, over-training (Richard Winsley) and sport-specific laboratory and field-based research has informed and underpinned consultancy work with numerous national sport governing bodies, the International Olympic Committee, and Premier League Football and Rugby Academies.

Currently, basic research has initiated the use of breath-by-breath respiratory gas analysis and magnetic resonance spectroscopy to study the oxygen uptake (VO2) and phosphocreatine (PCr) kinetics of children during the rapid changes of exercise intensity which characterise most sporting activities. Alan Barker’s work on the measurement and interpretation of VO2 and PCr kinetics data has used these advanced experimental techniques to provide new insights into the physiology of exercise during growth and maturation. To date, our findings have shown that the transitions from rest to both moderate and heavy intensity exercise and of incremental exercise to exhaustion suggest that there is an age- and maturation-dependent change in muscles’ potential for oxygen utilisation, with children having a greater mitochondrial capacity for oxidation than adults.

An important aim of CHERC is to raise the profile of children’s health and well-being regionally, nationally and internationally. To date, the team has been invited to present its research to conferences in 42 countries and has presented over 100 workshops to teachers, students and academics in Europe, Asia and the Americas. The Centre through providing the first PhD training in the UK in paediatric exercise science has produced a new generation of researchers and educators. Thirty seven graduates of the CHERC are currently teaching, researching and promoting the subject around the world. Internationally, former members of the Centre are in academic posts in France, Portugal, Canada, USA, Mexico, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia. The first taught MSc programme in paediatric exercise physiology was developed in the Centre and it is proving very attractive to UK, EU and international students.

Finally, the importance of acquiring child-related data is as important today as it was 25 years ago. There is still much to be done and we look forward to the challenge of the next 25 years with youthful enthusiasm!