Number of participants in the World Physical Activity Day 2011

This is the first year that Catalonia has held the World Physical Activity Day (6th April of every year) and there has been 80% more participation compared to 2010.

If we take into account that not all participants are registered in organized events (like the informative ones or the sending of the main message: accumulate 30 minutes of physical activity every day), this is a remarkable achievement in relation to the number of active participants.

272 participants have registered, regarding the number of events. This is an increase of 134% in relation to 116 events of the previous year.

This is the most reliable indication when we evaluate the increase in participation, because it includes all the initiatives carried out by different entities whether the participants are registered or not.

In this concept (entities), this is where the most outstanding increase has been obtained: 493 entities which represent 182% increase.

It should be emphasized that the proportion of entities for each event has also increased with a ratio (entity /event) of 1.5 to 1.8.

This important implication of the entities would be in accordance with the necessity of multisectoral approaches in the fight against a sedentary life style, as the celebration of this Day implies.

There has been a diverse scope of entities that states the universal nature of physical activity: governmental, local, regional, health, education, sport and others.

In this final section, the participation for the first time of the company (6) and the university (12) should be emphasized.

Walk to Vallmoll (Mare de Déu del Roser School)

The territorial distribution of the participation in Catalonia has been homogenous between the provinces of Girona, Tarragona and Lleida, where 49% of the events have taken place; the other half of the events were held in the province of Barcelona.

There have also been events in Valencia (1), Madrid (1) and other countries like Argentina (2), Chile (1) and Columbia (1).

The majority of celebrations were physical activity and sports events and a third part were healthy walks. The rest of the disciplines (more than 200), and all information related to the celebration can be found on the official report (pdf, 2,2MB).

The 10 main disciplines are:

• Walks (128)
• Multisport for children (20)
• Spreading informative material of the 30 minutes message (15)
• Informative talks (14)
• Games (14)
• Gymnastics (12)
• Going upstairs (9)
• Cycling events (9)
• Challenges (counting the distance of participants) (8)
• Open doors to Sports facilities (7)

Nordic walk along the Diagonal of Barcelona (College of Physiotherapists of Catalonia)

There are more than 300 photos that you can see on the website pafes.cat (pictures) of the Plan of Physical Activity, Sport and Health (PAFES).

The celebration of the World Physical Activity Day is an initiative of the Brazilian organization Agita Sao Paulo and the network AgitaMundo with the support of the World Health Organization (WHO) since 2002. In Catalonia it has been promoted by the Plan of Physical Activity, Sport and Health of the Generalitat of Catalonia.

Key text words in english of the Toronto Charter

The Toronto Charter for physical activity: a global calling for action has been translated into Catalan and Spanish (Castillian) by the Plan of Physical Activity, Sport and Health (PAFES) of the Generalitat of Catalonia.

The Toronto Charter is an international agreement document concerning common actions to be carried out in order to promote physical activity. The document explains the benefits of physical activity for health, but it goes beyond this and gives concrete examples directed to all related areas:

• education
• transport
• sport and recreation
  
• urban planning.

It took two years to prepare the final text thanks to 2.000 comments from 450 organizations or people from 55 countries around the world. The Global Council for the Defense of Physical Activity (GAPA) of the International Society for Physical activity and Health (ISPAH) lead the project.

The Charter was published into English during the closing plenary of the 3rd International congress on physical activity and public health in Toronto in May 2010. Since then it has been translated into 17 languages including Catalan and Spanish (Castillian).

It is worth noting that the text is intended for any person and/or institution who want to fight against a sedentary life style. That is to say, both directors and professionals in education, sport, leisure activities, health and urban planning are given guide lines.

This strategy could be enhanced by forwarding the Charter to colleagues and supporting (individually and/or institutionally) the Toronto Charter.

The more registrations and support we have, more synergy and strength will be obtained to achieve the benefits of physical activity in our country, in Europe and in the world.

Signing of the agreement between the Secretary General for Sports, Anna Pruna, and the chairman of the Fundació Agrupació Mútua, Josep Lluis Vilaseca (Foto: Jordi Estruch)

Font: www.gencat.cat/esports

The Secretary General for Sports, Anna Pruna, and the chairman of the Fundació Agrupació Mútua, Josep Lluís Vilaseca, have signed an agreement of collaboration with the objective of promoting physical activity among the population with healthy routes that will be signposted. The initiative will take place in several Catalan towns as one of the actions contained in the framework of the Plan of Physical Activity Sport and Health (PAFES), that the Catalan government has been carrying out since 2007 . [read the rest of the info (in catalan)]

The Fundació Agrupació Mútua has been working to promote social action since 1993, date of its constitution. An example of this task is to spread information to prevent health problems.

Related to the promotion of health through physical activity and the promotion of a healthy ageing, the book  Actividad física y envejecimiento. was published in 2009.
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Graphics of the participation in the World Physical Activity Day celebrated on 6th April in Catalonia (click the image to enlarge)

36,890 people and 175 organizations have participated in various events to celebrate, for the first time in Catalonia, the World Physical Activity Day. The celebration, that is sponsored by the Global Network Agita Mundo and supported by the World Health Organization, takes place every year on April 6th around the world.

All events registered on the website of Plan for Physical Activity, Sport and Health (www.pafes.cat) can be downloaded here (Pdf in Catalan, 410 KB).

Also available are the pictures of several events in “Healthy photos” in the “Interactive PAFES” section of the website.

Poster of the World Physical Activity Day in Catalonia

Catalonia has joined for the first time in history the World Day of Physical Activity with the aim of enhancing awareness of the importance of leading an active life at any age. On 6th April, like every year, this Day has been celebrated worldwide. In Catalonia, activities started on 3rd April and lasted until 11th April.

Since 2002 the World Health Organization by an official resolution “urges Member States to celebrate a ‘Move for Health’ day each year to promote physical activity as essential for health and well being”.

The main message to transmit is: At least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity every day.

The proposal of the WHO initiative comes from a previous and successful one organised by Agita Sao Paulo in Brazil and AgitaMundo network that manages, year after year, bringing together around 2,500 participants 5,400,000 events around the world.

Everybody has experimented sometime the pleasure of listening to classical music or feeling better while listening to rock & roll.

According to a paper published on Apunts de Medicina de l’Esport, although music has not got any ergogenic direct effect by itself, it helps to dissuade external stimulus and to focus attention on specific tasks.
There are many papers that show the benefits of music in several situations:

• Decreases blood pressure
  
• Decreases heart rate
• Decreases anxiety
  
• Decreases pain
  
• Relieves symptoms of illness
  

Cycling is a fun way to keep you physically active. In addition, the bicycle is a healthy form of transport and environmentally friendly.

Unfortunately, however, each year more than 400 cyclists are admitted into Catalan hospitals as a result of injuries resulting from falls and collisions. Most of these people were children or adolescents and, in more than a quarter of the cases the cause of admission was a head injury.

Several studies have demonstrated that the use of cycle helmets while cycling can reduce between 63% and 88% head injuries affecting cyclists of all ages.
When you go cycling, get a helmet and ensure that children always wear one.