Contents of sportEX health – Oct 2010 (issue 26)

• Policy update – a look at this quarter’s physical activity policy developments both nationally and internationally
• Research update – our quarterly roundup of research relating the promotion of health through activity
• A review of possible evaluation methods of physical activity schemes along with the pros and cons of each written by Kiara Lewis, a senior lecturer at the University of Huddersfield
• High powered obesity drive – a look at Michele Obama’s mission to tackle obesity
• Senior Fitizens: holding back the ageing process – an evidence based look at the physiological effects of ageing along with a detailed discussion on how sport and vigorous physical activity can stave off the effects of ageing. By lecturers Drs Simon Jobson and James Hopker
• To find out the best way to promote active travel, a research team for the Australian State of Victoria asked why people don’t walk or cycle more for day-to-day trip purposes and what can a government do to increase walking and cycling. We review the findings.
• Getting motivated and staying motivated – Supporting older people in adopting and maintaining an active lifestyle is not an easy task. This article provides some practical information that can help to increase the chances of not only helping older adults to increase motivation but equally, if not more importantly, how to adhere to an active lifestyle.
• The Global Charter for Physical Activity – we look at what it is, what it aims to achieve and how can you get involved.
• A roundup of recently launched physical activity promotion resources.

2000 free walks and walking maps

A slightly flashy site but nevertheless quite useful. It has 2000 walks all around the UK along with accompanying walking maps. I entered in my postcode and it came up with 25 walks nearby including difficulty rating, distance and duration. You can also specify from any of these categories and look in one or more regions of your choice and also choose if you want the walk to be point to point or circular. In addition when you select your walk (and it might take a minute to load) it gives you the option to print the map, share the link or post it on Facebook/Twitter etc.  Flashy it might be, but it’s also quite fun! Visit www.naturevalley.co.uk. Anyone got any others they can recommend? Please comment below.

Yahoo’s Purple Pedals Project

One of the aims of this blog is to highlight interesting things I encounter that are relevant to the topics of the sportEX magazines. These could come from anywhere – podcasts, newsletters, emails from sportEX readers etc. This one I heard on The World Technology podcast and is based on an initiative from Yahoo involving the distribution of 20 GPS-enabled bicyles around the world. The bikes are painted bright purple and are geared up to take pictures and video regularly which is then uploaded automatically onto photo-sharing websites like Flickr and a video-sharing site hosted by Yahoo (naturally!). The idea is to follow the lives of the bikes as they travel around the world courtesy of the muscle power of bloggers, Yahoo users and others.

This feels to me like a gem of an idea. Firstly there’s a big company utilising physical activity as part of a project (although as far as I can discover, this isn’t how they’re marketing it..yet) and an entrepreneurial activity promoter may feel there is an opportunity either in approaching Yahoo in the UK perhaps with a proposal for an extension of this project (younger adults are a key target market for Yahoo), particularly as it seems one of the 20 circulating bikes has not yet made it to the UK (although I can’t confirm that for sure). Either way this is a fantastic concept – one which could easily be built upon and with great marketing legs (no pun intended) for commercial organisations wanting to promote their involvement in physical activity. Another thought might be cycling organisations like British Cycling who might see this as fitting into part of their Everyday Cycling campaign, or cycling charity Sustrans? Either way there are lots of possible ways to utilise an initiative like this, if you have any thoughts or ideas you feel inclined to share, please post them below. If you want more info you can watch a video on this link and visit the Purple Pedals website.

Step by step tube line by Pruhealth

This is a great idea for those of you promoting physical activity in London. PruHealth have developed a tube map which details the number of steps between each station on the London Tube line. The idea is to encourage people to walk between stations rather than take the tube. Click on the image itself to download the PDF and thanks to Pruhealth for a great resource.

sportEX leaflets given NHS nod of approval

In May we were approached by one of the Department of Health’s London Regional Public Health Group physical activity coordinators who told me that the team had carried out a review of patient resources and found that sportEX’s activity promotion leaflets were some of the best available in the UK. Given the credibility and effectiveness of this physical activity team, this endorsement meant a huge amount.  As a small company with a modest marketing budget, the buyers of our products and services are our best advocates. As a result of this review, the activity team circulated the following email to their full list of London-based public health contacts:

The London Regional Public Health Group physical activity team have recently reviewed the stock of physical activity educational material catalogued in PCT resource centres. We were pleased to identify that all of the resource centres reference educational materials on physical activity and physical activity in relation to chronic disease. However, a high proportion of the referenced material was found to be out of date or no longer available.

As the education of patients and the public through written material is an extremely important component of promoting and advising individuals on physical activity we would like to ensure that all PCTs are using current and appropriate literature to do this. Subsequently, we have undertaken an audit of physical activity leaflets and posters available on line and a review of their content. The outcome of this work has resulted in the compilation of a catalogue (although not exhaustive) of appropriate and useful public physical activity leaflets and posters, this catalogue is attached with this letter.

While undertaking this review it came to our attention that a series of over 40 condition specific physical activity leaflets developed by sportEX Health were particularly good. The sportEX Health leaflets are all peer reviewed and have been deemed by the physical activity team to be user friendly, provide practical information of a high quality which is pertinent to specific health conditions, an example of a leaflet is attached with this letter. These leaflets are available online to purchase and we have collaborated with SportEx Health to offer NHS Trusts a 15% discount as part of an exclusive promotion (available until the 30 of June) where NHS organisations quote 2007/L on ordering leaflets by calling: 0845 652 1906. The range of leaflets can be viewed at this link.

sportEX health Apr 09

We tried something different with this issue of sportEX health and decided to post it online instead of printing it. We wanted to get a real impression of what our subscribers thought when faced with this, instead of the paper form. We’ve had some great feedback, particularly as we incorporated a whole range of interactive elements within the issue and published it on our newly selected e-zine platform, Z-mags. Here’s a preview I posted on YouTube – if you want to check out the issue for real, email me with your name and job title (tor@sportex.net) and I’ll send you a link if you’re one of the first 50 responders to this blog post.

New presentation from our keynote Major Moves speaker

For those of you who attended the sportEX conference, Major Moves 2008, our keynote speaker Biray Alsac has had a busy few months. This time she’s been speaking at the ACSM conference in the USA.

Entertaining activity promotion

Some very entertaining YouTube videos on the theme of promoting physical activity for health!