Enjoy physical activity to battle sedentary behaviour and inactivity among older adults from a socially inclusive perspective

Sedentary behavior (SB) and insufficient physical activity (PA) has increased substantially over the last decades and especially with the
COVID restrictions. SB increases with age and older adults are the least physically active age group. Robust evidence shows the health
benefits of regular PA and the harms of high levels of SB along the ageing process. Moreover, enjoying PA is a key element to adhere and
maintain this healthy behavior. However, the content of the programmes has been traditionally determined by the focus on the functional
benefits of PA to prevent age-related disability. Therefore, JOIN4JOY aims to: a) co-create a programme for community-dwelling older
adults (JOIN4JOY-C), and for long-term care residents (JOIN4JOY-LTC), focused on enjoyment and applying a social inclusion perspective to
reduce socio-economic, cultural, health and disability-related barriers to access physical activity; b) create local and global virtual
communities of practice to share knowledge and experiences and enhance the sustainability of the project; c) train professionals and
students on behavior change techniques with a social inclusion perspective ; d) implement and evaluate the programme regarding
feasibility, acceptability and impact; e) replicate the training with the train the trainers methodology. Accordingly, a co-creation process
with end-users, family members, professionals, students and policy makers will be conducted through focus groups. A programme based
on PA reinforced with self-management strategies to promote behavior change will be the basis for the co-creation. In addition, the
octalysis gamification framework will be used to define the enjoyment component. We will develop a programme guide and a online
training platform linked to the virtual communities of practice. We expect to reach a total of 144 end-users, 9-15 students and >300
professionals and to impact current research, policy and practice by promoting a change in the PA culture.