According to European Parliamentary Research Service, "excessive body weight and excessive body fat affect more than one in two adults in the EU and the rates have been rising steadily. The causes are genetic, behavioural, cultural and socioeconomic and are mainly driven by an unbalanced diet and physical inactivity. Furthermore, these conditions are major risk factors for serious chronic illnesses, and account for roughly 7% of EU Member States' healthcare expenditure. EU prevention initiatives broadly target nutrition and physical activity." Additionally, the EU Action Plan on Obesity 2014-2020 states that apart from the 7% mentioned above, "substantial indirect costs are also incurred from lost productivity arising from work absences due to health problems and premature death. Recent estimates show that around 2.8 million deaths per year in the EU result from causes associated with overweight and obesity." This medical condition obviously affects the quality of life, with repercussions in social, professional and personal sectors. It is a leading cause of death that can be prevented worldwide, with increasing prevalence in adults and children, and authorities consider it to be one of the most serious public health problems of the twenty-first century. Obesity is a nutritional and metabolic medical condition, that accumulates excessive body fat, leading to reduced life expectancy and / or health problems. Obesity increases the risk of various diseases, particularly heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obstructive sleep apnea, certain types of cancer, osteoarthritis, and asthma. This project aims to create the proper scheme to support prevention and early detection of erroneous eating habits, diseases of nutrition, to raise awareness about the problem of unhealthy eating among our communities and to reduce as much as possible its effects. HEALTHY plans to inform and train adults in adopting a healthy lifestyle for themselves and for their children, to fight against obesity, a disease that can cause 10 different types of cancer. Obesity can lead to social stigmatization and professional disadvantage. Compared to people with normal weight, obese employees, on average, have higher rates of absenteeism from work and have extended medical leave, which increases costs for employers and decreases productivity, thus avoiding hiring people that suffer from obesity. Adults also tend to reward their children with food, giving them a faulty parental model. The lack of a healthy diet in childhood can lead to serious eating disorders that can cause obesity. For example, binge eating disorder is often associated with a specific precipitating event and followed by severe discomfort and self-condemnation. It also develops the idea that food is a remedy when negative feelings like depression, stress, anxiety, loneliness, etc. appear thus making the person suffering from a disorder finding comfort in food. Obesity is often associated with underachievement, low self-esteem and psychological distress. The project is expected to have 3 major target groups, followed by other collateral ones: MAJOR target groups: -DIRECT beneficiaries: 1. adults with bad eating habits, predisposed to having a slow metabolism, leading to gaining weight easily and to become obese, adults with children, giving them a bad example of nutrition, affecting their quality of life; 2. Adult Education organisations, as they are in direct contact with adults from local, regional, national communities, leading to a higher impact of the HEALTHY initiative, providing trainings and formation programs on a frequent level; 3. children of the adults predisposed towards obesity, as they have a faulty example in their parents, falling in the same patterns and behaviours of nutrition. Specific objectives of the HEALTHY project are: - To train adults regarding the obesity condition, to fight against inadequate eating habits as a way to prevent obesity; - To offer guidance and support to people fighting against obesity, especially to parents, teachers, policy makers, stakeholders, dietitians and medical staff; - To inform communities about the level of gravity regarding the obesity problem at a European level; - To develop a strategy in preventing obesity and in reducing the number of deaths caused by this medical condition; - To improve the quality of life of people suffering from obesity; - To deliver innovative and updated training materials, including new, ICT – based methodologies and use of OER to help transfer the necessary knowledge in preventing obesity; - To improve the nutritional routine of those who suffer from obesity, by offering them daily solutions regarding smart choices in selecting their diet; - To use dissemination tools with the purpose of raising awareness concerning obesity, amongst society.
As it is described at the application stage of the HEALTHY Project; - Increase the number of overweight citizens in the EU, - Decreasing physical activity-based life - Increase health budget inside general expenditures - Increase on diseases (e.g. heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obstructive sleep apnea, certain types of cancer, osteoarthritis, and asthma) linked unhealthy lifestyle, - Decrease in productivity at social and work life, - An increase in death rates caused an overweight life. which was mainly the result of the lack of a healthy life. HEALTHY Project has been structured to give a contribution to the defined issues to be solved partly. Healthy Project mainly aimed to cause an awareness between - Adults (with their protective attitude against their children) - Caregivers - Parents( and children indirectly) - Authorities, policymakers, stakeholders, - Adult Education organizations, - Teachers, - Communities, - Dietitians and medical staff, - People tend to live with fast food - People eating much than they need, because of emotional reasons like depression, stress, anxiety, loneliness, underachievement, low self-esteem, and psychological distress, etc. In order to reach as many possible individuals and help the overweight people suffering to have a healthy life, the partnership worked; - Medical, - Metabolic - Nutritional fields not only providing with awareness but also an innovative training tool could be used to reverse all undesired results, statistics, information shared above. For the purpose of this aim, the partnership produced - O1, HEALTHY Training Kit, under Italian partner ISTUD coordination, has its own methodology to define the most necessary topics to be studied, topic-specific courses, its activities, interactive life methods to be used for a healthy life inside the daily routine. Training kit developed with professionals tested with users, and end-users in national events and transferred to VLS. Stages followed to reach the HEALTHY Training Kit A1 - Development of Methodology A2 - Development of Course content A3 - Testing of HEALTHY content - O2, HEALTHY Virtual Learning Space (VLS), under Romanian partner CPIP coordination, aimed to give attractiveness, interactiveness to the learning/teaching/using processes. Designed user-friendly, intuitive, interactive and tailored on the needs of target groups which using an online environment delivering the Training Kit in an accessible from anywhere. VLS supported social media channels containing also posters, informative posts which can be thought of as a leaflet that makes it is to be used in the classroom, lectures, as many as times with anybody continue project concept. Videos and a list of games are now ready to be used, possible to update at any time. Its refinement made with the help of feedbacks collected in the 2nd National Events just after slight touches is given by the Joint Staff Training held under Bulgarian partner coordination. Although planned with 120 participants, it was realized with about 500 people which made it possible to collect rich feedback. The number of feedbacks made VLS be much closer to the beneficiaries. Stages followed to reach the HEALTHY Virtual Learning Space (VLS); A1 - Structure Design A2 - Content insertion A3 - Refinement of platform - O3, HEALTHY Handbook, under Turkish partner BOSEV coordination, used the content developed under IO1, Inspired by VLS possibilities made O3 user-friendly. Handbook dedicated to organizations that work with adults and distributed amongst them with the purpose of informing a wide number of target group representatives, about the benefits of HEALTHY project products. The handbook is now a part of ongoing activities in local, and quite many end-users already checked it and using it. For instance, the coordinator BOSEV is distributing it all in Ankara with the ongoing promotional activities touch directly to the public, with ongoing dissemination info days touch directly to the professionals, course providers in the field are using outputs in actively. CPIP, the Romanian partner, is still using content in local INFO days, also in the EU with networking events. This handbook comprised not more than 60 pages, planned as not more than 30 pages at the stage of application, (long enough to give the reader all the necessary information and short enough to not get the reader bored), and it is planned as each partner printed 25 copies in their national language, together with extra 10 which will be printed in English language by BOSEV, leading to a total of 160 handbooks which will reach the project's beneficiaries. The total number of printed national copies already reached more than 500 copies at the moment because of the end-users interested in content printed in public promotional activities. The handbook has an attractive and colorful design, making sure to contain only relevant and "to the point" information, becoming a very useful marketing tool, which will "speak".