On May 10 a further "tasting session" of EuroFIT took place. This time the session was presented to a group of participants with diabetes that are integrated into the Sweetfootball follow-up program.

The session was held in a positive environment with high interaction and a good learning climate.

With the support of EASO, the EU H2020 NoHoW Project organised a workshop at the conference that aimed to put together experts on behaviour change and obesity to discuss a series of position statements on behavioural approaches to longer term weight management.

Marta Marques was also involved in a NoHoW symposium: NoHoW EU Project, four-years into the intervention perspective.

Regarding another project, Rui Jorge, PANO's PhD student, presented a poster titled: Pretreatment profiles of 6- and 12-month weight change among women with overweight and obesity involved in a commercial weight management program.

PANO Research Group was represented at the XIII Jornadas da Psicologia, held by Instituto Piaget Almada. In a communication titled "Physical Activity Promotion and Health: From evidence to intervention”, Jorge Encantado highlighted the importance of motivational and self-regulatory determinants for behaviour change to sustain healthier lifestyles. It was a great opportunity to disseminate PANO's research projects among students and professionals!

The University of Newcastle held another NoHoW consortium meeting in the first week of April to discuss user engagement, process evaluation, and scientific dissemination strategies. The consortium also presented the workflow of current deliverables and plans for future work packages accomplishments to the European Commission Review Panel. More information about NoHoW HERE.

A European programme, delivered in Portugal by PANO researchers Pedro Teixeira, Marlene Silva and Hugo Pereira, which targeted the lifestyles of male football fans of 15 European football clubs has been more effective in improving physical activity than other physical activity intervention programmes, according to research just published in PLOS Medicine. Read the paper here.

The European Fans in Training (EuroFIT) programme, an EU-funded randomised control trial of 1113 men aged 30-65, carried out across 15 professional football clubs in England, the Netherlands, Norway and Portugal, also led to important improvements in diet, weight, wellbeing, self-esteem, vitality and biomarkers of health risk. EuroFIT is delivered by club’s community coaches in football club stadia in 12 weekly, 90-minute sessions which are aimed at increasing physical activity, reducing time spent sitting and improving diet in a way that maintains change over the long term. A novel pocket-worn device (SitFIT) developed for EuroFIT by the Glasgow company PAL Technologies allowed self-monitoring of time spent sitting and daily steps, in real time while a game-based app encouraged between-session social support.

For more information about the results of EuroFIT click HERE.

PANO Research Group was massively represented at the 22nd Portuguese Congress on Obesity (SPEO), in Lisbon. António Palmeira, Inês Santos, Jorge Encantado and Catarina Luís organised a Symposium on behalf of the NoHoW Consortium, where last years' efforts conducting a Randomised Controlled Trial using Digital Tools for supporting weight-loss maintenance were presented. Additionally, Inês Santos participated in a Symposium, organised by the SPEO’ Special Interest Group in Nutrition, on the nutritional intervention in non-surgical obese individuals; Marlene Silva presented the subject of "Obesity and Social Stigma" and was also involved in the Symposium dedicated to the Portuguese National Program for the Promotion of Physical Activity (PNPAF-DGS). Eliana Carraça also participated in a Symposium dedicated to Psychology with a presentation entitled "Treatment Predictors: clues to the intervention".

The EuroFIT Launch Event held at Scotland House in Brussels on 31 October 2018 to celebrate the success of the research project and to learn how the ground-breaking programme will be rolled out across Europe.

EuroFIT Coordinator Prof Sally Wyke commented, “The launch of EuroFIT into the real world of football and public health was a great success.  Over 70 people from different countries and organisation came together.  We have scientific evidence of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness and research-based guidelines on how to deliver the programme in football clubs.  We have a pragmatic, inexpensive, not-for-profit licensing system that will protect the fidelity of the programme and ensure that outcomes are the same.  All in all a great investment from the European Commission.” For more information click HERE.

On October 16th, Marlene Silva and EuroFIT Consortium presented a Symposium at ISPAH congress entitled "Increasing physical activity in overweight football fans: The role of motivational theory in promoting physically active lifestyles in the EuroFIT program". The purposes of this talk were to describe how constructs from motivational theory (Self-Determination and Achievement Goal Theories) were used to inform EuroFIT intervention strategies, and to report on whether the program impacted motivational targets. More information about the congress HERE.

A pitch of the EuroFIT was presented addressing how the project development was framed to address two major problems in health promotion research and translation: Long-term sustainability of health-related behavioural changes and the scaling-up of research-based interventions, reaching a population impact.

Pedro Teixeira was featured on national radio station, on february 10th, in a weekly show "TSF Runners", discussing the subject of active lifestyles: "walking meetings and stand up desks". Access audio file HERE.