ENGSO Youth contributes to study on health promoting sports federations
It is well-known that grassroots sport movement contributes to the promotion of health-enhancing behaviours, however, sport clubs, which in most cases function solely on volunteers, often experience limitations.
The newly published “Health promoting sports federations: theoretical foundations and guidelines” study provides guidelines developed for national sports federations to promote health and support sport clubs in following the same example: to foster and promote long-lasting health-enhancing physical activity that covers all aspects of health: physical, social, mental, spiritual and community.
On behalf of ENGSO Youth, Iva Glibo, a former ENGSO Youth Committee member, contributed to the study as one of the authors.
The team of researchers led by Dr. Aurelie van Hoye, a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the University of Limerick, provide a health promoting sports federation definition (HPSF) and elaborate on how the settings-based approach to health promotion can be tailored to suit the specific needs of these federations. Additionally, the guidelines provide concrete examples of intervention strategies that health promoting sports clubs can implement effectively. The study serves as a background to HPSF Guidelines, which will be issued in collaboration with the World Health Organisation.