Combining Physical Activity Promotion and Sustainable Development - What’s Behavioral Medicine’s Role?

Carina Mnich, Student SIG member

“Improving health and quality of life through proven behavioral sciences” is stated as the purpose on SBM’s website. To achieve this goal, physical activity (PA) promotion has been a SBM core topic for many years. Looking at the broader picture, sustainable development (SD) is also a core aspect when it comes to health and life quality. To clarify, SD does not refer to behavior maintenance, but to the SD definition of the Brundtland report which states that SD is “to ensure that it [humanity] meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). SD is divided into three dimensions (Munasinghe, 1993). People usually connect SD to the environmental dimension, that is maintaining the functioning of natural systems. The other two dimensions: comprising maintaining and promoting social welfare and individual well-being (social SD); and generating a maximum of income while at least maintaining the capital being used (economic SD), are usually neglected (Munasinghe, 2002). Both PA and SD are global challenges concerning future health and environmental development. Therefore, the following outlines a reciprocal relationship between PA and SD and discusses the possibility of combining PA promotion and SD.

The third goal out of 17 SD goals from the United Nations (UN) Agenda 2030 – addressing global challenges – states that a healthy life and well-being should be ensured until 2030. This includes the reduction of premature mortality due to non-communicable diseases by one third through prevention and health promotion (UN, 2015). While this goal is most clearly related to PA, the UN agenda also shows that the SD goals are interrelated (UN, 2015). This means that one goal, cannot be achieved without considering the others. Examples for other goals are no poverty, gender equality, inclusive and equitable education, productive and decent employment for all, resilient and safe cities, and combating climate change (UN, 2015).

Current evidence indicates that PA and SD may contribute to each other. PA contributes to SD in active modes of transport such as walking and cycling, as this reduces carbon emissions that contribute to climate change and while at the same time being associated with increased levels of moderate to vigorous PA (Berntsen, Malnes, Langåker, & Bere, 2017; Fishman & Cherry, 2015; Woodcock et al., 2009). Environmental SD contributes to PA promotion through functioning green and natural environments as they motivate people for PA (Calogiuri, Nordtug, & Weydahl, 2015; Calogiuri & Elliott, 2017). PA also contributes to economic SD as it prevents chronic diseases and thereby reduces costs for health care (Grabow et al., 2012), while economic SD contributes to PA promotion by providing job opportunities in the sports sector. An example for this are the German “Children’s school of sports”, where children get a PA program, conducted by qualified exercise instructors. Looking at social welfare and individual well-being, PA contributes to obesity prevention, improved mental health and well-being (Andersen, & Byrne, 2011; Penedo & Dahn, 2005) and social capital, in this way contributing to reduced social inequality and social exclusion (Lawson, 2005). Social SD refers to the access to safe educational facilities that provide a safe learning environment. Such facilities are not only important for academic education but also for PA promotion as higher PA levels in children depend on characteristics of the built environment (Graziose et al., 2016). These connections between PA and SD have recently outlined by the WHO (2018).

Why bring PA and sustainability together at SBM? From a behavior change perspective, they have some things in common. Both require timely and effective behavior change to prevent further damage. Currently prevailing theories of behavior change mostly consider psychosocial determinants for behavior, explaining up to one third of PA and sustainable behavior (Bamberg & Möser, 2007; Plotnikoff et al., 2013). To account for the unexplained variance, the paradigm “Thinking, fast and slow” by Kahnemann (2012) may provide valuable insights. His research has shown that most human decisions are based on automatic cognitive processes such as impressions, feelings and intuition, and not on rational reflection. Upcoming approaches in this context have been the concepts of mindfulness, referring to enhanced awareness and attention about unconscious processes, and emotions. Both concepts have already been associated with increased PA and sustainable behavior (Amel, Manning, & Scott, 2009; Barber & Deale, 2013; Fischer et al., 2017; Kals & Maes, 2002; Rhodes, Fiala, & Conner, 2009; Rhodes & Kates, 2015; Ruffault et al., 2016; Stroger, Kiken, & Ramcharan; 2018; Tsafou et al., 2017). However, Kahnemann’s model is more comprehensive and well-worth investigating.

Future research should explore if application of new approaches of behavior change related to automatic cognitive processes may change both PA and sustainable behavior. A final point to consider is that there are various validated ways for PA assessment, but valid assessment of sustainable behavior is still a challenge, especially when it goes beyond the ecological dimension. Therefore, validated scales and measurements should be created to allow valid, reliable and comparable research on this topic.

 

 

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