OUTDOORS. GREEN. DIGITAL.
USING SMART DIGITISATION TO PROMOTE ACTIVITY, FITNESS AND HEALTH Authors: Thorsten Grießer, Managing Director, Planet-O GmbH (Photo left), Alexander Blocher, Managing Director, Planet-O GmbH (Photo right) Graphics: Planet-O GmbH, www.planet-o.eu
In the last few years, many urban and rural authorities and institutions have addressed the increasingly important issue of outdoor activities and sports for their residents and have often taken positive decisions in favour of funding and building new outdoor sports facilities. In their guest article, Thorsten Grießer and Alexander Blocher make the case for underpinning current and future decisions with robust data on usage frequency, occupancy rate, capacity utilisation and other parameters. The funding and construction of new outdoor sports facil ities is an important element in developing and augmenting a green health boost to a municipality's activity and exer cise infrastructure with implications for society as a whole. At many of these facilities, the focus is on implementing low-threshold exercise programmes to develop and maintain general physical fitness and make exercise enjoyable. Among other things, public outdoor fitness and health infrastructure should be a component in improving the health and well- being of users and making the neighbourhood more attrac tive and more active. Low-threshold exercise opportunities However, the recent past has also revealed the need to de velop these sports facilities further – in terms of digitisation, carbon neutrality, smart security, attractive cool and green spaces, 24/7 use, methodical, service-driven and hybrid sup port from various coaches, and strategic standardisation. At the same time, the aim and focus should be to inspire as many (not yet active) people as possible to cultivate an ac tive, healthy and sustainable lifestyle in the fresh air in green surroundings. To achieve this goal, new and innovative action is needed alongside the simple – even temporary – installation of sports facilities or outdoor sports equipment in order to reach more target groups at the same time, increase the effectiveness of these measures and make user behaviour visible and meas urable in the long term with a variety of robust data. EU project investigates the correlation between infrastructure and physical activity Although research into public fitness and health infrastruc ture needs to be expanded further going forward, the meas 18
ures mentioned have already been scientifically validated. A comprehensive meta-analysis from the EU project "#Digital Active Regions Europe Outdoor - #DARE-O" funded by the European Union, investigated the effectiveness of the de velopment and expansion of public exercise and health in frastructure on physical activity. The meta-analysis entitled "Does the installation or the improvement of existing out door parks increase physical activity levels? A systematic re view" was conducted by an international panel of researchers from Italy, Spain, Portugal and Germany. 959 potentially rele vant scientific articles were included on the basis of specific inclusion criteria, reviewed and evaluated. 26 scientific papers succeeded in satisfying the set inclusion criteria and were in cluded in the effectiveness study. The review highlights the importance of an interdisciplinary and intersectoral European approach, as the refurbishment of existing or installation of new outdoor fitness parks with the current "traditional" and scientific approach has only a limited impact on physical activity within the population. #DARE-O Greenbook in six European languages The #DARE-O Greenbook summarises the findings in a 96page brochure. It is available for download free of charge in German, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Croatian. It presents practicable and directly implementable results, findings and approaches to digitisation from the #DARE-O project and also provides a concrete look ahead to relevant, digital fields of action for the future. The goal is to show deci sion-makers and interested parties in municipalities, regions, political parties, associations and companies forward-look ing approaches to sustainably enhancing the attractiveness of existing and new interconnected outdoor facilities on a sound data basis. sb 6/2023
