Promoting Physical Activity in Rural Areas of the Baltic Sea

Abstract

The Villages on Move Baltic Erasmus+ Sport project (VOMB) (Number 2016-3715/001-001) tackles the challenge of increasing the amount of Health Enhancing Physical Activity for rural citizens in their everyday life. The EU objective, as well as the project relevance, are well-documented by research studies. The main findings from general surveys, such as the EuroBarometer 472 (2017) include: • Nearly half of Europeans never exercise or play sports, and the proportion has gradually increased in recent years. • During any given week, more than half of Europeans do not do any vigorous physical activity, and around half do not engage in moderate physical activity. • 15% of Europeans do not walk for a period of 10 minutes at any time during the week, while 12% sit for more than 8.5 hours per day. • Formal sport settings are less popular than informal settings, such as parks or other outdoor areas, the home or commutes between home and work or school. The project coordinator, South-Eastern Finland’s University of Applied Sciences (Finland) and its partners ESLi (Finland), University College Denmark (Denmark), Lääne-Viru College, Estonia (Estonia), Latvian Rural Forum (Latvia) and Kauno kolegija/ University of Applied Sciences (Lithuania) have built a strong net-work by implementing their most appropriate expertise, in order to recognise the Council’s recommendation on promoting health-enhancing physical activity across sectors and the EU Physical Activity Guidelines Policy Actions of Health-Enhancing Physical Activity. One of the project’s objectives is to provide recommendations for coming up with new ideas and good practices for health-enhancing physical activity in rural areas around the Baltic Sea. This e-book motivates people to come up with their own ideas on how to add physical activity in their owneveryday lives. Supports them in executing these ideas as well as applying others. Inspires and encourages them to • take part in sports and health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA), • find new ways of taking part in sports and HEPA, • and finally, share their experiences and become volunteers, who provideother people the possibility to have joy of sports and HEPA. The ideas are created and collected in an innovative way, by means of a culture of experimentation.