15.12.2011 - Ausgabe: 6/2011

Pilot project within the framework of the Hessian sustainability strategy

Minister for Social Affairs, Stefan Grüttner: “A healthy lifestyle is becoming increasingly important.”

At the opening of the fitness trail, the Hessian Minister for Social Affairs Stefan Grüttner said, “Exercise is an essential factor in the development and maintenance of good health – this is true in all walks of life. Above all, in light of the increasingly aging population, a healthy lifestyle from a young age is becoming increasingly important. Those who stay active and independent for as long as possible and who have an active social life will, in all likelihood, remain healthy both physically and mentally.”

Hanau is delighted to be the pilot town for the new exercise programme, explains Claus Kaminsky, Mayor of Hanau: “These accessible and thoroughly enjoyable facilities for people who aren’t physically active sit well with our efforts to shift the focus and interests of senior citizens to preventative healthcare in a society where people are living longer.”

The Landessportbund Hessen (State of Hesse Sports Association) has greeted the introduction of exercise trails for senior citizens in easily accessible park locations as an extension of the infrastructures for sport and exercise. Dr Susann Lapp, vice-president of the state sports association, stressed how, “they can represent a useful extension to the existing clubs on offer, especially if there is advice and an introduction on how to use the equipment. That’s why we will work together with the Hanau Sportkreis (circle of sporting groups located in Hanau) and the local sports clubs to ensure that personal trainers will occasionally be on hand to offer advice on how to use the fitness trails. We will urge the sports clubs to use the new sports facilities creatively and to integrate them into their organisational structure.”

Hanau, alongside Darmstadt, is one of the two Hessian pilot towns in which the Hessian Ministry for Social Affairs has made a fitness trail for senior citizens available. In an initial three month trial period, fifty participants will test the fitness trails under academic evaluation. Darmstadt College, the sports medicine department of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt, as well as RheinMain University are responsible for the academic monitoring.

“Using physiological interactions, the quality of life and zest for life of participants are encouraged, and permanently stimulated and stabilised. Scientific findings indicate that sports activities can result in a reduction in anxiety and depression, a higher stress tolerance, an improvement in one’s general mood and, fundamentally, a higher degree of satisfaction. Even the social dimension plays a considerable role in this process. The fitness trail offers the chance to meet up to do sports and exercise, and puts a stop to social isolation, exclusion and stigmatisation amongst the older generations,” states Prof. Dr. Volker Beck, of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Social work at Darmstadt University.

The goal of the trail is to motivate senior citizens to participate in health-promoting exercise in the fresh air. The prevention against age-related conditions and diseases such as heart attacks and diabetes is the major focus of such fitness facilities. Every fifth person (out of a total of 1.2 million people) in Hesse is currently over the age of 65, and this figure is growing. Morbidity caused by Type 2 diabetes, also referred to as adult-onset diabetes, increases considerably with age and can be prevented through targeted prevention programmes focusing on exercise and diet. Amongst the 70 year olds in Hesse today, approximately every fifth person suffers from diabetes. With the 75 to 80 year olds, the figure is 25 percent higher. Type 2 diabetes is, as a result, one of the most significant and, in terms of its consequences, most expensive chronic diseases in Hesse.

“Health prevention is one of the major socio-political cross-cutting tasks which affects and links many individual political areas requiring coordinated concepts,” stressed Social Minister Grüttner. For this reason, the Hessian State Government published the health promotion programme “HealthyLiving – StayingHealthy” in the framework of the sustainability strategy. It shall promote prevention in the different phases in life by means of projects and programmes. The fitness trails for older people are a component in this package of measures.

On 26 September 2011, the Hessian Social Minister Stefan Grüttner and Lord Mayor of Hanau Claus Kaminsky thanked the senior citizens who made themselves available as experimentees for the pilot project of the Hessian sustainability strategy for the fitness trail. “Exercise is a key factor in promoting and maintaining good health – at any age. Above all, against the background of demographic change, a healthy lifestyle at an early age is becoming increasingly important. Those who stay active and independent for as long as possible and who have an active social life will, in all likelihood, remain healthy both physically and mentally,” said Hessian Social Minister Stefan Grüttner in Hanau. “The fitness trail in Hanau is a huge success for us. The 58 experimentees aged between 65 and 91, except one person who fell ill, all used the fitness trail over a period of three months with three training sessions per week.”

The second fitness trail, which was initiated as a model project in the framework of the sustainability strategy of the Hessian State Government, was opened on 11 June 2011 in Darmstadt, in the Bürgerpark Nord (north citizen’s park).

In his opening speech Darmstadt’s Lord Mayor Jochen Partsch declared: “After a fitness trail was set up in Wixhausen on the grounds of the meeting places of the active senior citizens, with the fitness trail in the citizen’s park, we have been able to motivate a wide public into participating. This is an excellent way of making prevention and health promotion practical.” The use of the fitness trail clearly reduces the risk of falling and fear of falling for older people sustainably, as they move more safely and are more mobile, adds Commissioner for Social Affairs Barbara Akdeniz: “The fitness trail is a further step towards an age-specific, healthy town.”

Previous investigations into the use of fitness trails by Prof. Dr. Grit Hottenträger, Landscape Architect at RheinMain University have shown that the user group is dependent on the locations of the trails and, particularly, the choice of equipment too. “So there are trails which are very well used by sports persons, such as those also accepted by older people for training or by all generations within families. It will be interesting with this trail to see how the guidance and support facilities affect the profile of the users. For the planning of trails, those are the other decisive criteria,” states Prof. Dr. Grit Hottenträger.

Assume own responsibility for one’s own health

In view of the aging population, health promotion and prevention will always play a greater role in the future. This is what the Hessian Social Minister Stefan Grüttner expressed at the State Conference “Staying healthy when you are middle aged – Strategies for Health Promotion for Men and Women”, which was organised on 31 October 2011 in the framework of the sustainability strategy of the Hessian State Government in Frankfurt am Main. “State-funded projects for prevention and health promotion are indispensable. In light of the situation of the public finances as well as the challenge of keeping the health system fundable, in future, citizens will have to assume more responsibility for their own health than before. Health is very much a personal commodity. It is each individual’s task to preserve it,” emphasised Grüttner. Every citizen is required to stay fit and healthy in order to avoid later consequential damages as a result of an unhealthy way of life.