Activities – Womens Hurdles

Analysis of the needs and barriers

Delivery of a comprehensive analysis of the literature and the ideation and implementation of a survey in the participating countries to identify the barriers to physical activity, and therefore to imagine possible solutions.

The survey aims to summarize and examine women’s barriers to attend community and home-based physical activity, in particular will investigate:

Individual barriers
Interpersonal barriers
Contextual barriers
and discuss which barriers may be addressed by alternative programs.

Besides the collection of the questionnaire, partners are also going to carry out a “web research” to understand what women search online about “physical activity” in order to contribute in an innovative way to the udnderstanding of the barriers to physical activity in women.

So, in WOMEN’S HURDLES we are going to describe and identify the characteristics of fitspiration content posted across social media (ie, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr) via public hashtags with regards to physical activity and exercise, body image messages, food or dieting messages among women.

Organisation of a train the trainers course in Rome (IT) for professionals (physicians, physical trainers and physical activity managers) and national replications of the course

Each partner will select, by launching a call that will be advertised on their website, social media, networks of contacts, 2 professionals and managers involved in the physical activity field who will be involved in the Master event, that will be held in Rome (IT). At the end of the course, these professionals will be able to train other professionals in their countries. Some of the topics that will be discussed during the course will be:

knowledge of pathophysiology and basic medical-clinical themes of interactions between physical activity and multifactorial diseases
knowledge of basic hygienic-health and nutritional issue related to physical exercise activities
basic knowledge in the fields of psychology, pedagogy, sociology
knowledge of the main motor techniques, training methodology and teaching methods necessary for conducting and managing motor and sports activities, adapting and individualizing the intervention in a multidisciplinary context and inserting them in a public health perspective
communication skills. The trainers need to acquire both comprehensive knowledge, in order to give patients adequate and accurate information and communication skills. The way in which information is presented is as important as the information itself. Educating, training and motivating participants play an appropriate role in enabling and empowering women to make informed decisions about participation in physical activity programs.
knowledge about women’s barriers
knowledge about Golden rules to increase physical activity in women

Definition of Golden rules to increase women’s participation to physical activity programs

Based on the results of the survey and the analysis of good practices, a manifesto, with golden rules, will be developed with general indications to increase women’s participation to physical activity programs, to be applied in the local contexts, taking in consideration different cultural, societal and health system-related contexts.

“Golden rules” will aim to promote physical activity among women, how to engage and motivate them to perform physical activity, breaking down barriers, maintaining a good adherence to physical activity programs and therefore to increased levels of participation in sport and physical activity, the do’s and don’ts list; afterward design, deliver and evaluate different approaches to physical activity, offering to the women different opportunities according to their preferences and to their personnel sports history.

Identification of good practices

The evaluation and identification of the good practices on physical activity for women in the different countries will be based on a wide literature review, but they will take in consideration the local situations, in order to implement activities feasible in local contexts characterized by different cultural, societal and health system-related profiles.

The collection and analysis of good practices will be performed in three steps:

Interventions of international literature database origin to be surveyed through a detailed literature review.
WOMEN’S HURDLES project partners will have to assess these interventions along several indicators.
WOMEN’S HURDLES project partners will then collect recent interventions from their own.