https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23636552

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23636552

Dear Cain

This is my area of research. I have published several studies on physical activity for chronic diseases, including obesity, general chronic disease cancer. 

We found among other things the key aspects for sustaining PA included effective support systems; pedometers; GP patient interactions; improvements in perceived health status; improvements in fitness levels etc. Parallels could be drawn from these findings with non-diseased populations.  All of these are on Research Gate.

Hope this helps.

Martyn

It's important to know what your target population is going to be. As the first two answers show, most interventions (and therefore their eventual followups) are on specific populations: seniors, children, people with various diseases or conditions, etc.

If you are targeting healthy adults, then maybe I can help because I have been working on their daily walking for transportation and/or recreation (but not for sport). As you no doubt already realise, most interventions to change people's behaviours (not only for PA!) do not last for very long, it's something to do with human nature I think!

This is a bit difficult. Regardless of the targetted people, physical activity need to become part of the culture of communities. Starting from primary schools on wards, regular classes and extracurricular activities are important components. In my view this must continue even to university edcuation stages. In Addition, decent places (parks, yards, gardens ..etc) need to be available to practice physical activities. Physical activities can be practiced even at homes, if this is part of health culture. Finally, a level policy is needed at least in the earlier stages.

From a purely psychological perspective, the literature shows that when buy-in is rooted in something intrinsically (internally) motivating it is sustained over time. In other words, behaviors can be reinforced in order to promote physical activity; however, acting reinforcers must include items that are intrinsically motivating. 

When I was young in Taiwan, no matter where is the government, organizations, and schools, every money, around 5 or 10 minutes, there was someone leading for physical exercises to move body limbs and change body postures outdoors in the fresh air.

As a social scientist,  the issue like need and importance of physical activity should be introduced from the early childhood period from family socialization process. Such socialization process helps each individual to play, walk, do minimal exercise at home, and the physical activity should be taken as a routine work of an individual. For example, allocate half an hour in the morning for physical activity.  Second, school curriculum should also focus on importance of physical activity, and engage students at least half an hour per day. Third,  there should be a   good communication between the doctors and patients during the consultation. Doctors should give proper information about the need and importance of physical activity to become a healthy person by giving appropriate examples, and encourage every individuals for physical activities, and especially to the persons who have high blood pressure, diabetics, cardiovascular problem, and overweight problem. 

Media can play important role to disseminate proper information and encourage people for physical activity as a part of life. YOGA related information provided from various TV channels has been beneficial to many people. 

Coordination and cooperation among different stakeholders supports for sustainable physical activity by taking it part of life and regular process like taking breakfast each day. 

Dear all, thank you kindly for you input on this topic. You have really given me some great advice and just to expand, the project i seek to commence will be in pre-adolescent children. THANK YOU!

I want to add that the socio-ecological model really applies here.  This includes PA at the individual, interpersonal (friends, social network), organizational  (for example schools as cited above), community (access, availability, etc.), and very importantly public policy where recess and other times for PA are required in the school day.  As these behaviors and related knowledge, self-efficacy, and perceptions of PA become established early in life the better chances they have of being sustained.

I have been working more and more with the idea of self tailoring.   This means that people set their own goals and are not given goals and that they keep track of them on a weekly basis.   This could be applied to wearables.   Most of these are preset and folks seldom change the setting.  When they cannot consistently reach this setting they are discouraged and stop using the trackers.   If they could do a run in period and then set the tracker for five or ten percent above what they are doing now, they would probably reach these goals and and persist longer.   I have never tried this but would like someone to think about doing it.   We have to give up on 10,000 steps a day.  This is not realistic for most folks and just discourages them from trying.

The PA intervention must be bottom-up as well as top-down otherwise it will fail to be sustainable. Look at the 'in-motion' project in Saskatchewan. Or view my books on empowerment and health promotion which provide case studies on PA and bottom-up projects.

@Glenn Laverack I agree with you. From the top down is the most efficient way to do it.

Frieda, both is necessary and top-down is certainly not the most effective-even if it is efficient!

Top down, to add a chief coordinator in charge a training to do training and coordinated each department's coordinator, then, it will work. I was in a 10,000 employees factory and in charge a factory wise workmanship training when I was young with the title of the system engineer. I trained from President, VP, top managers, down to the 3rd level managers, supervisors, all production line leaders who train production line workers. I also coordinated the program with all department managers to run the program smoothly.

Of course, for different department and different management level, my training contents are different to teach them basic knowledge and what they need to do in their delegation scope. I gave a monthly report to the top management to the President, VP and the top level manager monthly meeting use.

Through the top down support, the program was run smoothly and the training program had cut a workmanship defect rate from 2 digits to below 0.01%. It depends on how to design the training program and a reporting system. The training program should not be bored, but emphasize the benefits, responsibilities, and acceptable criteria.

@Glenn Laverack, How will you do top-down and bottom-up?

I suggest you read around the subject to understand the context better

Start with my very first book:

Laverack, G. (2004) Health Promotion Practice: Power & Empowerment.

London. SAGE Publications. ISBN: 0-7619-4180-0

http://www.sagepub.co.uk/booksProdDesc.nav?prodId=Book225583

Thanks for your recommendation.