INTERVIEW – The French do not move enough. To help them, Public Health France has deployed new online tools.
- 150 minutes of moderate physical activity, or 75 minutes of sustained activity, is recommended each week for adults.
- Children, on the other hand, need to do one hour of physical activity per day.
- These thresholds make it possible to limit the risk of non-communicable diseases linked to lifestyle, such as diabetes, cardiovascular pathologies or even certain cancers.
- But in fact, only 61% of adults and 25% of children manage to move enough.
- The Manger Bouger site of Public Health France now includes practical advice for doing more physical activity.
How to get the French moving? Public Health France hopes to have the answer to this question. According to the Esteban survey, 4 in 10 adults do not get enough physical activity. In children, it is even worse.
And it’s not just this parameter that disappoints: the time spent in front of the screens is constantly increasing, reaching 3 to 6 hours for young people and 5 hours for their elders. Faced with these poor results, the agency decided to strike hard. And it attacks the subject that annoys: the Internet.
Its site, Manger Bouger, is getting a makeover and now offers a “Move more” tab. A new space that allows you to take stock of your physical activity before obtaining concrete advice. Soon, a mobile application should even target women who are not very active.
Catalog of activities, schedule to fill in yourself, recommendations according to age… The list of novelties is rich. Anne-Juliette Serry, head of the “Nutrition and physical activity” unit at Public Health France, discusses the solutions with Why actor.
What does this new space offer?
Anne-Juliette Serry : It allows people to assess their level of physical activity, which is the first step. We then try to make Internet users want to move more. We help you to be more active on a daily basis … It may seem simple, but the simple fact of asking where, when and how to do this activity has a real impact.
Our planner allows you to select activities related to work, leisure, travel, because they are very varied. They are integrated into a schedule that allows you to set the day, the time … This schedule can be synchronized with the smartphone, with possible reminders.
Full interview with Anne-Juliette Serry
You also offer physical activities …
Anne-Juliette Serry : Several exercises are presented, since the recommendations have evolved. It is important to teach people how to do different forms of physical activity without hurting themselves.
What are your local actions?
Anne-Juliette Serry : Public Health France is developing partnerships with National Education. We help set up experiments that try to increase the physical activity of children. We try to work with children, but also with their parents. Concretely, we help to organize schoolyards, so that there are more games, or that the lunch break is active. With the local communities, we are also setting up pedibuses, so that children can go to school on foot.
We are also partners of various networks, such as active cities OMS (World Health Organization, editor’s note). They work on town planning, around the concept of walkability. This consists of putting in place safer roads, footpaths, cycle paths, or even lighting that makes you feel safe. The WHO network of cities disseminates good practices to other municipalities in order to facilitate physical activity in cities.
.
