For Increasing patients’ physical activity can take advantage of Advent and its proverbial calendar, according to a pilot study published in the special Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal. U
The intervention, christened «Active Advent» included services for the abs in the construction of a snowman and a walk for «Christmas deliveries», and was appreciated by the participants, demonstrating that the public would be in favour of public health campaigns that help them to be more physically active and less sedentary during the holidays, say the researchers.
The holiday season is a time particularly at risk for physical inactivity and weight gain (there are studies suggesting weight gain of about 0.4-0.9 kg during the holidays).However, it is unclear how feasible it is to implement a holiday-based physical activity intervention.
Researchers at Loughborough University then conducted a pilot study to test the feasibility of a Christmas-themed physical activity intervention during Advent.
They recruited 107 sedentary adults, mostly (88%) white women with an average age of 46. 56% were overweight or obese. Participants were randomly assigned to the intervention group (71) or control group (36) and received a daily Advent email (1-) containing a Christmas-themed physical activity idea to complete that day.
Examples included «Star» jumps, «Rennar» sprints or «Rock around the Christmas tree» dances.
Each idea was proposed at three levels of intensity: Basic Elf (low intensity), Lady Christmas (moderate intensity) and Santa Claus (high intensity).Participants were free to choose the intensity level of their physical activity each day. The checks received a leaflet on healthy lifestyle on 1 December.
All participants used an online questionnaire to indicate the number of weekly minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and the number of weekly days of muscle-strengthening exercises.
About half of the participants in both groups were asked to wear a wrist accelerometer 24 hours a day for the duration of the study.
Participants in the intervention were also asked to rate the liking of the activity ideas and to tell what activity and at what intensity they completed each day.
The researchers acknowledge that this was a brief intervention that generated relatively small changes in behavior and, as a pilot study, could not report on effectiveness.However, the intervention was safe, inexpensive and designed to be easily extended, and evidence suggests it may have the potential to change healthy behaviors in the long term.
On average, the two groups reported similar minutes of participation in moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity at weeks one and two. At week three, the intervention group reported participating in about 21 minutes more moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity per week and just over half a day more muscle-strengthening exercises per week than the control group.
On average, people in the intervention group spent one hour less sedentary than people in the control group.
Overall, 42 (70%) of the 60 participants in the intervention group said they enjoyed the intervention, and 41 (69%) of the 59 reported completing the ideas of the active Advent program every day.Of these, 18 (30%) completed the Basic Elf, 12 (21%) the Lady Christmas, and 11 (18%) the Intense Santa Claus.
«The public was interested in participating in a Christmas-themed physical activity intervention, which also reduced sedentary time and showed promise for increasing participation in physical activity,» the authors write. «Appreciation and adherence to the intervention shows that the public would be in favor of public health campaigns that help them become more physically active and less sedentary during the holidays,» the authors conclude.
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Source — https://www.univadis.it/viewarticle/elfo-base-o-babbo-natale-intenso-un-programma-di-2022a10028nq