Good health and well-being for all Europeans

“Good health and well-being” is one of United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. It is proven that an unhealthy lifestyle can result in several non-communicable diseases. On the other hand, a combined intervention with healthy behaviors, such as physical activity, healthy eating and positive mindset, is essential for health and well-being. For this, healthy literacy and lifestyle behavior awareness and changing should be promoted.

European Project New Health 2022

New Health 2022 is a 3 years European project (2020-2022), with the objective of improve healthy lifestyle of the European population, using healthy literacy and lifestyle behavior awareness and changing, through physical activity, healthy eating and positive mindset.

The results!

The following results were developed in New Health 2022 project:

• Standards for “Healthy lifestyle promoters”, for them to have a level 2 EQF of Europe Active to promote healthy lifestyle in populations (https://www.europeactive-standards.eu/sites/europeactive-standards.eu/files/EuropeActive_Summary_Healthy-Lifestyle-Promoter-2021_0.pdf).
• “Healthy lifestyle promoters” e-learning training course, created for this purpose, based on the developed standards.
• Free education of 163 “Healthy lifestyle promoters”, through the created course “Healthy Lifestyle Promoter”, constituted by 3 parts: Exercise as Medicine; Food as Medicine; Brain as Medicine.
• Free “Lifestyle scan”, accomplished by 445 people, which allows people to know how their lifestyle behaviors are, in comparison with the healthy lifestyle guidelines, namely from World Health Organization.
• 29 “Healthy lifestyle mini videos”, free available in the created website and Youtube channel, organized in 4 seasons: The turning point of the Homo Sapiens (the essential insight of healthy living, to improve awareness and literacy of European population about healthy lifestyle; Exercise as Medicine (physical activity); Food as Medicine (eating); Brain as Medicine (mindset).
• The New Health website platform (www.new-health.eu), accessed by 78382 people, with the following contents: information about the project and about a healthy lifestyle; a register of professionals and consumers (827 in total); a register of partners and companies that will be involved an international partner in the future to use and disseminate the project results (78 in total); “Healthy lifestyle mini videos and the “Lifestyle scan”.
• The New Health Youtube channel, with all the created videos.
• A free “New Health App”, for Android and iOS, for people access to these created tools.
• A free e-Book, reporting educational visions, strategies and program about lifestyle coaching and behavior change.

New Health 2022 was financed by Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union (Project no. 613045-EPP-1-2019-1-NL-SPO-SCP). This project was coordinated by New Health Foundation (The Netherlands), and the other full partners were: Sport Sciences School of Rio Maior (Portugal), Europe Active (Belgium), Lithuanian Association of Health and Fitness Clubs (Lithuania), Fitness.be (Belgium), European Association Sport, Exercise And Health (Spain) and Faculty of Physical Education and Sports (Slovakia). New Health 2022 project also had 5 associate partners, namely: European Network of Sport Education (ENSE); Movisie (Netherlands); Knowledge Centre for Sport Netherlands (KCSPORTNL); NL Actief (Netherlands); and Jan Middlekamp.

The follow up!

A new project application was submitted to ERASMUS, named Healthy Lifestyle Network Europe, to continue to develop New Health objectives. Besides management and coordination, the main work packages will be: Education of Healthy Lifestyle Promoters; Enhancing the lifestyle of consumers with health inequalities by Healthy Lifestyle Promoters; Healthy Lifestyle Coach course; Impact and dissemination.

Authors: Susana Franco ¹, Vera Simões ¹, Carla Chicau-Borrego ¹, Anna Szumilewicz ², Julian Berriman ², Simona Pajaujiene ³, Aurimas Maciukas ⁴, Eric Vandenabeele ⁵, Manel Valcarce-Torrente ^{6, 7}, Francisco Gómez-Almeida ⁷, Antala Branislav ⁸, Jana Labudová ⁸, John van Heel ⁹

Affiliations: ¹ Sport Science School of Rio Maior; ² Europe Active; ³ Lithuanian Sports University; ⁴ Lithuanian Association of Health and Fitness Clubs; ⁵ Fitness.be; ⁶ Valencian International University; ⁷ European Association Sport, Exercise and Health; ⁸ Faculty of Physical Education and Sports; ⁹ New Health Foundation

Supported by the Erasmus+ program of the European Union.

New Health 2022 project
Project Application nr. : 613045-EPP-1-2019-1-NL-SPO-SCP

HLNE (Healthy Lifestyle Network Europe) 2024/26 project
Project Application nr. : 101133533 - HLNE - ERASMUS-SPORT-2023-SCP