No running from resolutions with new parkrun partnership

24/01/2019

Given that 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail by February, parkrun Australia is grabbing hold of January to help ensure more Australians maintain an active and healthy lifestyle.

parkrun has teamed up with public health education campaign, LiveLighter, and is calling on all Australians to get along to their local parkrun as part of living a healthier life in 2019.

With research[1] from LiveLighter showing that only 1 in 5 Aussies are meeting the physical activity guidelines,the partnership aims to promote health and wellbeing and combat Australia’s growing obesity epidemic.

According to parkrun Australia and NZ Health and Wellbeing Lead, Glen Turner, the partnership between parkrun and LiveLighter is about aligned values and goals and represents a win-win for both organisations and their respective networks.

“Like parkrun, LiveLighter has a strong connection with community and align with our work and focus on healthy lifestyle and engaging people to improve their health and become more active,” Mr. Turner said.

“LiveLighter is unique in its commitment to promoting healthy choices, meals and activities that are designed to make healthy eating and exercise habits a part of everyday life.

“parkrun is interested in broadening its engagement with the LiveLighter network, as despite our strong existing connection with our participants, we recognise we are not experts in all areas of health and wellbeing. Our partnership with LiveLighter provides us the opportunity to offer more advice and generally participate in health and wellbeing more effectively and more comprehensively,” Mr. Turner said.

LiveLighter Campaign Manager, Alice Bastable, says the statistics show many people are still finding reasons not to exercise but a community response is a big step in the right direction.

“We approached parkrun to collaborate for a number of reasons, particularly their strong community cohesion and in response to what our research tells us about Australians’ exercise habits, which parkrun directly addresses,” Ms Bastable said.

“Only 17% of people we surveyed held gym memberships and the reasons for cancelling overwhelmingly showed up as cost and lack of motivation."

She said almost half agreed that socialising is a key motivation for exercise, with many having parks less than 5 minutes from home.

“Our research shows that while more than half of Aussies prefer to exercise outdoors, we’re still not making the most of the beautiful parks on our doorsteps.”

“parkrun ticks so many boxes - it’s free, it’s outdoors and it’s social. We’re excited to guide our network towards the parkrun community, in addition to the extensive health, nutrition and lifestyle advice we can provide as part of our LiveLighter campaign,” Ms. Bastable said.

The LiveLighter campaign encourages people to be aware of their health through exploring potential consequences of unhealthy lifestyles, developing skills to make positive changes and by supporting the dialogue and community response to changing the food and activity environment.

Offering recipes, free meal plans, nutritional advice, a BMI and junk food calculator and more, the LiveLighter website is resource-rich and pairs perfectly with parkrun to grab hold of those New Year's resolutions now before they fall to the wayside in February.

Register for your free local, weekly, timed parkrun event and join the half a million Australians across the nation in taking the first steps towards a healthy and active lifestyle.

[1] From LiveLighter’s most recent ‘Shape of Australia’ report prepared for Cancer Council WA and Cancer Council Victoria by Nina Sapountsis, Liyuwork Dana, and Simone Pettigrew at WA Cancer Prevention Research Unit (WACPRU) – full report not yet published. A sample of 2000 respondents was used with about two thirds of the sample being aged 18-54 years of age.