Professor Mark Tremblay has a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Sports Administration and a Bachelor of Physical and Health Education degree from Laurentian University. His graduate training was from the University of Toronto where he obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the Department of Community Health with a specialty in Exercise Science.
Dr. Tremblay is a Senior Scientist with the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research (HALO) Research Group at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute and Professor of Pediatrics in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology, Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, President of the Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance, Founder of the Sedentary Behaviour Research Network, President of Outdoor Play Canada, and Adjunct/Visiting Professor at five other universities on four continents.
Dr. Tremblay has published >600 scientific papers and book chapters in the areas of childhood obesity, physical activity measurement, exercise physiology, sedentary physiology, outdoor play and health surveillance. According to Scopus, his h-index is 100 and his published research has been cited >42,000, consistently placing him on the Clarivate list of highly cited researchers (top 1% in the world). He has delivered or coauthored over 1,000 scholarly conference presentations, including more than 150 invited and keynote addresses, in 22 different countries.
Dr. Tremblay received an honorary doctorate from Nipissing University, the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, the Lawson Foundation 60th Anniversary Award, the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology Honour Award and John Sutton Memorial Lecturer Award, the Victor Marchessault Advocacy Award from the Canadian Pediatric Society, the Vic Neufeld Mentorship Award in Global Health Research from the Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research, the International Network of Time-Use Epidemiologists Laureate Award, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Trailblazer Award in Population and Public Health Research, and the Obesity Canada Distinguished Lecturer Award for his leadership contributions to healthy active living in Canada and around the world.
Dr. Tremblay’s most productive work has resulted from his 35-year marriage to his wife Helen, yielding four wonderful children.
Related News
Research Projects
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Worldwide trends in underweight and obesity from 1990 to 2022: a pooled analysis of 3663 population-representative studies with 222 million children, adolescents, and adults.
24/03/2024
Underweight and obesity are associated with adverse health outcomes throughout the life course. Therefore, optimal nutrition and health policies should address both forms of malnutrition, as indicated by Sustainable Development Goal Target 2.2, which calls for ending “all forms of malnutrition”. Trends in underweight and obesity have varied substantially across countries and age groups.1, 2, 3, 4 Furthermore, underweight and obesity have changed independently of each other in some regions.2 Despite these heterogeneities, global data on how the combined (double) burden of underweight and obesity has changed in terms of magnitude and composition are scarce, and the latest data on their individual prevalence are from 2016.1 This lack of consistent evidence hinders optimal resource allocation and policy formulation to address both forms of malnutrition.
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Race/ethnicity inequities in the association between movement behaviors and suicidal thoughts/ideation among adolescents.
21/03/2024
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Correlates of physical activity in children from families speaking non-official languages at home: A multi-site Canadian study.
13/03/2024
Outdoor time was the strongest correlate of boys’ and girls’ PA. Lower area-level SES was associated with less PA among boys, but outdoor time attenuated this difference. The strength of association between outdoor time and PA decreased with age in boys and increased with age in girls.
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Future directions for movement behaviour research in the early years.
29/02/2024
The early years are a key developmental period to establish healthy movement behavior patterns for both short- and long-term health and well-being.2,6 Although research in this area is growing, a number of key research gaps are highlighted in this article. Research addressing phases 1 to 4 evidence gaps is necessary for addressing evidence gaps in subsequent BEF phases, including interventions (phase 5), updates to national and international movement behavior guidelines (phase 6) as well as population-level policies (phase 6).12 Across BEF phases there were consistent trends that research is particularly needed that focuses on: all movement behaviors, children aged <3 years (ie, infants and toddlers), and low- and middle-income countries. Research that addresses health inequities in movement behaviors within and between countries to support a healthy start in our youngest generation of children is essential to improving population health globally and universally as part of COVID-19 pandemic recovery efforts and efforts in achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.2
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“Goldilocks days” for adolescent mental health: movement behaviour combinations for well-being, anxiety and depression by gender.
22/12/2023
The Dual Continua Model of mental health suggests two separate, but related, dimensions of mental health contribute to social, emotional and vocational/academic functioning (Westerhof & Keyes, 2010): 1) an illness dimension capturing the presence and severity of syndromal symptoms (e.g. internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, psychosis) and 2) a positive well-being dimension capturing subjective feelings of well-being (e.g. perceiving meaning in life, satisfaction with social relationships, self-efficacy). Better functioning outcomes in both adults and youth are associated with reporting both low levels of illness symptoms and high levels of positive well-being, as opposed to individuals who just report one or the other (Butler, Patte, Ferro, & Leatherdale, 2019; Dumuid et al., 2022; Duncan, Patte, & Leatherdale, 2021; Keyes, 2002). Much of the research on mental illness symptoms in relation to movement behaviours has focused on reducing clinically significant symptoms or avoiding disease states (Mammen & Faulkner, 2013; Ravindran et al., 2018; Recchia et al., 2023). Nevertheless, even among individuals who do not meet diagnostic criteria for mental illness, subsyndromal levels of symptoms can impair functioning compared to those with lower levels of symptomology (Hirschfeld, 2001). Avoiding disease should not be the only goal of mental health promotion, promoting behaviours associated with an optimal state of mental health must be also considered.