Let’s #BEACTIVE

The Let’s #BEACTIVE project was designed to establish an EU wide campaign to engage inactive citizens in physical activity, and to promote the European Week of Sport (EWoS) message and the importance of adopting healthy lifestyles. In the duration of the 3-year project the partners of Let’s #BEACTIVE worked ceaselessly to reach the full outcomes and objectives. Together, they reached thousands of inactive people across the EU to help to become more active, and to encourage and support them to adopt a healthier lifestyle. The project's consortium successfully managed to implement the Let’s #BEACTIVE activities in the project countries (IE, FI, ES, IT, LT, PT, CZ, UK). They organised the specially devised 6-week structured exercise interventions, tracked levels of physical activity, created the evidence base of the Let’s #BEACTIVE concept, and have promoted the campaigns of EWoS and National Fitness Days at national, regional and local levels. The three stages of the project took place every year (albeit with amendments in the third year because of COVID-19), and annual feedback provided by participants, personal trainers (PTs), fitness centres, and partners was used to finalise the methodology of the interventions. In summary, the trials consisted of a structured 6-week induction programme aimed to increase levels of physical activity and to improve different metrics of quality-of-life issues. The trials were held at fitness centres across the European countries with retention (adherence to maintain activity levels) at 3 and 6 months after the trials had ended. Even though the project was heavily affected in its last year by the lockdown of gyms due to COVID-19, nearly 4,000 inactive adults of 18-65 years old were engaged in its programme. In accordance with project work plan, the partners developed a variety of different Let’s #BEACTIVE intellectual outputs including e-learning courses, handbooks, guidance, and much more. All these intellectual outputs have subsequently been made freely available via the project website and have been actively disseminated to the different target groups. The findings of the data collection and the overall experience from the Let’s #BEACTIVE project have also been incorporated in a research and a recommendations report. These reports will be actively consulted and build on our level of understanding and knowledge even after the completion of the project to guarantee its sustainability and lasting impact of the project. From the start of the project, the partners consistently promoted the #BEACTIVE message and the European Week of Sport in their project activities as well as in other marketing and media messaging. A variety of communications channels and tools were used to reach a diverse audience and to promote physical activity – especially in support of the European Week of Sport. Finally, it is worth highlighting that during the final year of the project the COVID-19 pandemic had an enormous impact on intended project activities originally scheduled, but the partners were exceptionally resourceful in finding other ways of reaching the overall objective of activating people and in effectively promoting the #BEACTIVE message. The #BEACTIVE HOUR campaign, which the partners ran in late spring 2020, remains an excellent example of this resourcefulness and dedication.