Upcoming Webinar: Parenting strategies to promote health and address lifestyle risk factors among teenagers

1 hour free webinar on Wednesday 24th September 2025 at 12:00pm AEST via Zoom.

Presented by Dr Lily Davidson and Dr Katrina Champion, this webinar is for parents, school staff and anyone else seeking information about chronic health risk factors.

The ‘Big 6’ lifestyle risk factors for developing chronic health conditions for teenagers are:

• Alcohol use
• Smoking/vaping
• Sedentary screen time
• Unhealthy diet
• Physical inactivity
• Sleep quality

Parents, teachers and teenagers all play an important role in addressing these lifestyle risk factors during the critical developmental period of adolescence. This talk will discuss these factors and include practical, evidence-based strategies for parents to improve the ‘Big 6’ with their teenager

The presentation is informed by insights from the ‘Health4Life Parents and Teens’ online program (www.parentsandteens.org.au), which was developed with health experts, parents and teens, and aims to equip parents who have teenage children (especially those experiencing socio-economic disadvantage) with practical, evidence-based strategies. This program builds upon the existing ‘Health4Life’ school-based, online program for adolescents, which also targets the ‘Big 6’, and was previously trialled with approximately 7000 adolescents across 71 Australian schools in NSW, QLD and WA.

Following the presentation, there will be a Q&A session.

This webinar will provide:

• An understanding of the ‘Big 6’ lifestyle risk factors
• Strategies for supporting young people to improve the ‘Big 6’
• Introduction to the Health4Life Parents and Teens program

Dr Lily Davidson is a postdoctoral researcher at The University of Sydney’s Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use. Lily's current focus is on co-designing, optimising, and evaluating the ‘Health4Life Parents and Teens’ intervention, aimed at preventing the onset of the ‘Big 6’ health behaviours that lead to chronic disease. Previously, Lily was a research associate at the University of Cincinnati (USA). In this role, Lily worked closely with collaborators at Brown University (USA) and Latrobe University (AUS), on a feasibility trial for a social media-based intervention program, targeting excessive alcohol use among young adults from diverse backgrounds. Lily completed her PhD at The University of Queensland. During her PhD, Lily assisted closely with the co-design, implementation, and evaluation of a novel social network intervention aimed at reducing substance use among young adults in residential colleges.

Dr Katrina Champion is a Senior Research Fellow at The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use and Sydney School of Public Health. She is Program Lead of Healthy Lifestyles Research at the Matilda Centre and holds a Sydney Horizon Fellowship focusing on innovative approaches to improve the physical and mental health of Australian adolescents. Dr Champion is currently leading a MRFF-funded project to develop, optimise and trial a new parent-based intervention designed to improve health behaviours among adolescents experiencing socio-economic disadvantage.