Promotion of Physical Activity of the Youth through Active Mobility to School

Background During the past several years, physical inactivity has decreased among school children. They are more dependent on the car for the journey to school and children's travel behavior is a topic poorly considered by urban planners. Transportation decisions, built environment, and urban form may have links to health outcomes such as obesity. Physical inactivity is a well-known risk factor for mortality and chronic disease in public health literature. These are needed to be addressed by EU projects. Objectives 1. Providing state-of-the-art about the mobility of children/adolescents/parents, Active Transport to School (ATS), the built environment, physical activity (PA), and children’s body weight/fitness.2. Production of uniform and reliable data generated uniformly in the partner countries. 3. To shorten the time that the results of such academic studies reach the hand of policymakers, planners, and school authorities.4. To fill the gap between the empirical academic studies with the real users. Implementation Although the schools were closed in a considerable time during the implementation of the project, the project made a reasonable connection between research & public awareness about the necessity of the PA of children & adolescents via their daily mobility and body weight by a cooperation among universities, associations, and NGOs in 7 EU countries. The partnership measured the body efficiency and composition of participants by equipment and statically analyzed the relations with change in ATS. Achievements The PAYAMOS partnership collected the data of nearly 1000 pupils and adolescents in six European countries. They also wrote and submit four journal papers, held five multiplier (awareness raising) events in the schools of five countries (Greece, Italy, Croatia, Turkey, and Poland) with hundreds of participants, and sent information to 700 policymakers and institutions of Europewide.