How Do You Move? Everyday stories of physical activity.

ABSTRACT

Stories can be a powerful method of exploring complexity, and the factors affecting everyday physical activity within a modern urban setting are nothing if not complex. The first part of our How Do You Move? study focused on the communication of physical activity guidelines to under-served communities. A key finding was that adults especially wanted physical activity messages to come from 'everyday people, people like us'. This finding also reflects a wider move to use more relatable imagery in health promotion campaigns. Using a portrait vignette approach to create monologues, we set out to explore the experiences of people from diverse backgrounds living in Bristol, all of whom took part in varied leisure time physical activities but would also be considered to lead 'normal' lives. We aim to demonstrate that stories of such 'experts by experience' can contribute to how physical activity is perceived and elucidate the complex interplay of barriers and enablers in everyday experiences of physical activity.

The UK government has guidelines about how much physical activity people should do to stay healthy. However, many people don't manage to do as much physical activity as the government recommends. There are many reasons why people don't do enough physical activity. Reasons include where people live, what work they do or how much spare time they have. In the How Do You Move? project, we explored the messaging about physical activity guidelines. Many people told us that they wanted to hear physical activity advice from 'people like me'. We set out to find people who managed to stay active, despite how difficult that can sometimes be in modern life. We interviewed them about their physical activity. We then worked with them to write their experiences as personal stories. These stories are presented in this paper.