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Across Europe, a growing movement is redefining how physical activity is understood in public health. No longer seen simply as an individual lifestyle choice, movement is increasingly being approached as a collective, environmental and lifelong issue –shaped by schools, neighbourhoods, workplaces, families and local communities.
Within the European Joint Action JA PreventNCD, innovative pilot actions that aim to make active living more accessible, inclusive and sustainable across all stages of life are being developed. From digital tools helping adolescents discover enjoyable forms of movement, to community walking initiatives for older adults, workplace challenges promoting team-based activity and local platforms connecting citizens with healthy opportunities in their area, the initiative reflects a shared European ambition: embedding movement into everyday life.
Between 2010 and 2022, around 25% of the population in the WHO European Region was insufficiently active. Prevalence varies widely between countries, ranging from 8.4% to 51.6%, reflecting strong territorial and social inequalities in access to opportunities for physical activity. While progress has been uneven, 17 countries - mostly within the EU14 - have already achieved early the target of a 15% reduction in inactivity by 2030.
Summary infographics of WHO guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour
Gender disparities remain also as a key challenge. In 35 countries across the Region, women are consistently less physically active than men, highlighting persistent structural and social barriers to equitable participation. Now it’s time to turn the situation around.
Learning to move
The earlier stages of life, from childhood through adolescence, are a critical period for shaping lifelong physical activity habits. Within JA PreventNCD, schools and youth settings are key environments for building positive experiences of movement and reducing sedentary behaviours. In this context, community-based interventions and digital innovations are being combined to make physical activity more accessible, enjoyable and tailored to young people’s needs.
Aligned with the Croatian national programme on Healthy Living (Živjeti zdravo), the community of Pregrada (Croatia) developed a series of activities involving schools, public health professionals, municipalities, NGOs and sports organisations. These school-based interventions include daily 10-minute exercise sessions, interactive workshops and the “Polygon for Physical Activity” initiative implemented with teachers and kinesiologists.
Students participating in classroom-based physical activity and interactive learning sessions as part of school health promotion activities in Pregrada (Croatia)
The first activity - a lecture and interactive workshop involving students, teachers, and members of the core and health group - has been conducted successfully in elementary school Janko Leskovar in Pregrada. Additional initiatives include celebrating National Walking Day, organizing regular walks, student-led workshops, and community events in local boards and at park with the involvement of local associations and services.
Germany’s pilot introduces a personalised online activity matchmaker called Find your fit (Bewegungstypentest), developed by the Federal Institute of Public Health. This online questionnaire and feedback tool helps young people to choose an activity that fits to their individual preferences (e.g. ball games vs. gym vs. cycling).
The matchmaker is linked with inventories of sport and leisure facilities to support municipalities to provide place-based physical activity recommendations that can encourage adolescents for more physical activity. Its first version was tested with more than 300 adolescents through phone interviews, showing strong acceptance and usability. The initiative was later expanded through social media dissemination.
Another pilot in Greece, focuses on adolescence as a critical period for establishing healthy lifestyles. Implemented in the municipality of Kaisariani, the programme combines physical activity promotion with broader prevention goals related to nutrition, smoking and alcohol use.
More than 500 students aged 12–15 participated in educational activities and interactive lectures. Physical activity initiatives included a hiking excursion in collaboration with a local hiking association and a juggling workshop introducing movement through creative play. Arts teachers also encouraged students to create artworks on the theme of movement and active living, resulting in an exhibition presented during a parents’ day. The event also brought families together for a seminar on the importance of adolescent physical activity and the reduction of sedentary behaviour.
Students’ artworks on movement and active living displayed during a school exhibition in Kaisariani (Greece)
Building Everyday Activity Habits
JA PreventNCD interventions also focus on how everyday environments can support sustained physical activity through community-based action. By strengthening local engagement, improving access to information on opportunities for physical activity and fostering supportive community environments, these initiatives aim to embed active living into everyday habits across diverse local settings.
In Slovenia, a community approach has been carried out to develop the online platform -Healthy Carinthia. The project brings together four municipalities in the Carinthia region (Slovenia) through an online platform that maps local sport activities, hiking trails and preventive health opportunities.
The initiative aims to make physical activity more accessible and tailored to citizens’ needs, while strengthening local engagement and sustainability. As stated by the implementing team: “A local health group that includes local knowledge and interests is a guarantee for greater citizen engagement and sustainability of investments”.
Alongside actions involving schools, the intervention in Pregrada (Croatia) also reaches the wider community, engaging adults and older people through place-based initiatives that promote everyday physical activity, such as Walking Towards Health, a community-based programme organised by public health institutes, local authorities and civil society that encourages regular guided walking and promotes health education among adults and older people.
Workplaces in Motion
The workplace is a key setting for promoting physical activity among adults, where daily routines, organisational cultures and social dynamics can significantly influence health. By integrating movement into working life, workplace interventions offer an opportunity to reach large populations and to address one of the main drivers of sedentary behaviour in modern societies.
Croatia also explores physical activity promotion in workplace environments through the “Health-Friendly Company” certification model, an element of their national programme. The companies Hrvatska poštanska banka and Cemex Hrvatska d.d. previously conducted the process, in which the component related to physical activity was positively assessed.
Employees attending a workplace health promotion seminar at CEMEX Hrvatska focused on physical activity, wellbeing and healthy working environments
The pilot project is now evaluating the effectiveness of encouraging employees to exercise by conducting a survey with the aim of finding out how much time employees spend during the week doing physical activity, and also how many times during the past week employees did physical activity that included muscle strength exercises. The results of the employee survey will be an indicator of the effectiveness of the activities implemented by company management, which has not been monitored in companies so far.
France’s pilot aims to transform workplace physical activity into a collaborative and motivational experience grounded in behavioural science. The Great Challenge is a four-week workplace intervention designed to promote physical activity among French employees. Through a dedicated mobile application, participants are invited to collect ‘energy cubes’, with each cube representing 15 minutes of continuous physical activity. Notably cube accumulation is doubled when activities are undertaken with colleagues.
This challenge adopts a cooperative framework, uniting all participating organisations within the Great Challenge Community. Each participant contributes not only to their personal objectives but also simultaneously to three collective challenge levels: team, organisation and Great Challenge Community.
Alongside the intervention itself, the French pilot includes quantitative and qualitative research assessing changes in physical activity, motivation and implementation feasibility.
Twelve organisations participated in the 2026 edition of the Great Challenge. Recruiting organisations proved challenging, as links between health promotion and workplace priorities is often underdeveloped. The intervention took place from 23 March to 19 April 2026. A total of 80,950 energy cubes were collected, reflecting the commitment of 982 participants across the Community.
Across the different stages of life and settings, from schools and communities to workplaces and neighbourhoods, JA PreventNCD illustrates a shared shift in how Europe approaches physical activity. Rather than isolated interventions, these experiences show a growing ecosystem of prevention where environments, relationships and daily routines are designed to support movement. In this way, promoting physical activity becomes part of how societies organise everyday life, laying the foundations for a healthier, more equitable and more active future across Europe.
JA PreventNCD team working on increasing availability of healthy products and facilities
Antonija Balenović, Slaven Krtalić and Helena Križan
Croatian Institute of Public Health, Croatia
Dr. Ria Kortum and Dr. Anna Streber
Federal Institute of Public Health, Germany
Lotus Emam
Institut du Cancer de Montpellier, France
Neda Hudopisk, Urška Polanc, Brigita Ploder Hočevar, Helena Pavlič and Matej Ivartnik
National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia
Maria Karalexi
Institute of Child Health, Greece
Healthy Living Environments Communications Officer
Lluís Pascual i Vidal
Foundation for the Promotion of Health and Biomedical Research of the Valencian Community (Fisabio), Spain