Applied sciences and technology in support of healthy and active lifestyle in the Euro-Mediterranean region
7-8 October 2019 | Hotel Bernardin, Portorož, Slovenia
The EMUNI University in cooperation with ZRS Koper is organising a workshop in the framework of the project MEDHUB – Building a Knowledge Hub in the Euro-Mediterranean. The purpose of the workshop is to discuss the latest research and professional findings in the many disciplines contributing to the healthy and active development of children, and chart ways of improving that knowledge and its dissemination. The workshop will cut across nutrition; education; physical, social and cognitive aspects of children’s environment and development. Healthy and active lifestyles are only an emerging perspective in the context of the Euro-Mediterranean, but have an important potential for the youngest and crucial generation in our societies.
In 1998, the European Commission realized that there was scarcity of data about diet and physical activity in children and adolescents and their repercussion on health. This was the reason for several programs calls in the 6th and 7th Framework, and even in the Erasmus (+) Comenius, national and other Programs, in order to create a scientific corpus that was missing. Besides, the need to complete missing data also created some initiatives raised to help establish the positive attitudes towards healthy and active lifestyle. This need was emphasized in July 2012, when The Lancet announced a pandemic of physical inactivity and a global call of action to prevent increasing youth overweight and obesity in the overall European countries. It is a challenge, to be active in a world that favours inactivity and sedentarism in which one does not want to give up advantages of technology or even use technology for being active.
Together with an eminent group of scientists and experts, newly available data from cross-sectional, longitudinal and intervention studies, it is time for an active discussion, and to put all gained knowledge into practice. The workshop will consist in part of scientific and expert discussions and in part of a roundtable on how to improve the integration of scientific knowledge in the curricula of primary and secondary schools as well as higher education, and continue improving that knowledge. We will strive to produce concrete recommendations for teachers and policy-makers in the field.