CAPAS-Cité: a cross-border center to promote physical exercise
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The MEPS (Movement, Balance, Performance, Health), a UPPA’s laboratory in Tarbes, is spearheading the CAPAS-Cité cross-border project to promote physical exercise.
To stay healthy, the WHO recommends 60 minutes of physical exercise per day for children and at least 30 minutes for adults.
In parallel, the research carried out by the MEPS lab in Tarbes shows that one third of children fall short of these recommendations and that this proportion increases with age, particularly in cities. “Our way of life is evolving to the detriment of our health,” laments Julien Bois, university lecturer and researcher at the MEPS. “We increasingly have a sedentary way of life.
Promoting physical activity does not mean making Olympic champions but simply helping people to change their habits to stay healthy.”
With that focus, the MEPS embarked on an ambitious project with Spain and Andorra called CAPAS-Cité. In partnership with the Aragonese laboratory EFYPAF (University of Saragossa) and the local authorities of Tarbes and Huesca, researchers are now seeking to promote physical exercise among children and their families, organizing training seminars, stepping up their research, and more particularly, taking part in the creation of a Pyrenean center for improving and promoting physical exercise for health reasons (CAPAS).
This future cross-border infrastructure, with a branch in Tarbes and another in Huesca, will be the bridgehead for all the future initiatives. “The stakes are health-related, social and financial” reiterates Julien Bois: “The lack of physical exercise kills almost 5.3 million people worldwide each year, i.e. almost as many as smoking.”
