Forchildrenthe possibility to be physical active is very important for both physical health and well-being. Several studies claim that a reduction in physical activities (including daily travel) is an important reason forincreased weight and obesity am ong children. When everyday life is organized ina way that makes the car the most "natural" travel mode also forchildren, we are taking away children's possibility for physical activity as a part of their daily life, and inaddition make them more depen dent on parents and other adults. Theintention of the proposed project is to employ a holistic approach on children's physical activity. We want toanalyse this phenomenon inthe social context it appears. Theintention is toanalyse a broad spectre of c hildren's physical activities, school trips, theamount of outdoor play and organized leisure activities, and also relate this activity tothe family situation and the parents travel behaviour.
The proposed project contains three research themes:
1. Mobi lity in daily life; social trends and development. Atheoretical and empirical basis for understanding the context of children's physical activities and travel patterns.
2. Analysis of children's activity and travel patterns in different contexts also rel ated tothe travel practice of their parents. The most important data sources are the National passenger travel survey 2005 withtheadditional survey of children's physical environment and activity, and the surveys of Norwegian school trips 2002 and 2005 .
3. A review and discussion of "good-practice" initiatives to reduce children's car use. Proposals foradjustments forthe Norwegian context.
The project will arrange three workshops, addressing objectives related tothe three research themes; one seminar inthe last year of the project to disseminate knowledge from the project to planning authorities from both the national and local level; health, transport, educationand land use planners.