SLOfit data are used to determine global fitness trends and health risk
The SLOfit research team participates in several international research groups and projects.
The SLOfit research team participates in several international research groups and ongoing projects. Data from the SLOfit database has been disseminated across many forums, from newspaper articles, TV and radio reports in the national media, in addition to international scientific articles published in the highest-ranking journals. Some key projects are outlined below for those interested in the scope of SLOfit’s research interests.
Ongoing international cooperation summary
We have been actively involved in the World Federation of Physical Education Teachers (FIEP) since 1985, and in the European Federation of Physical Education Teachers (EUPEA since 2012). In both federations, we advocate for systematic regulation of physical education in the school system. Examples of good practices from Slovenia are often highlighted. Since 2007, the SLOfit team has been working with the Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative (COSI, World Health Organization) on obesity monitoring. Also using SLOfit data, the World Health Organization has taken an important step in its fight against childhood obesity by launching the Commission to End Childhood Obesity, which has produced a final report that places greater emphasis on physical fitness, physical activity, and physical performance based on best practices for monitoring children's physical activity development.
We have been actively involved in the World Federation of Physical Education Teachers (FIEP) since 1985, and in the European Federation of Physical Education Teachers (EUPEA since 2012). In both federations, we advocate for systematic regulation of physical education in the school system. Examples of good practices from Slovenia are often highlighted. Since 2007, the SLOfit team has been working with the Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative (COSI, World Health Organization) on obesity monitoring. Also using SLOfit data, the World Health Organization has taken an important step in its fight against childhood obesity by launching the Commission to End Childhood Obesity, which has produced a final report that places greater emphasis on physical fitness, physical activity, and physical performance based on best practices for monitoring children's physical activity development.
Since 2014, we are part of the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration research group under the auspices of the Imperial College of London, with whom we jointly publish influential global public health statistics.
In 2015, we joined the international research group Active Healthy Kids Global Alliance, which today includes over 57 participating countries from around the world. This group aims to improve conditions for active lifestyles among children and adolescents on a global scale by producing national analyses of children's physical activity in different regions, globally.
Since 2020, we have been coordinating the international network FITBACK, which supports the development of physical fitness monitoring systems on the school, municipality, regional, and country level using an effective top-down and bottom-up approach.
Between 2012-2016, we have been participating in global forums on physical education GoFPEP, which discusses the challenges and possible solutions for increasing children's physical activity. Slovenian examples of good practices, (especially SLOfit), often evoke many questions and quiet admiration or surprise among the many forum participants.
In 2008, the World Health Organization invited SLOfit researchers to join the HEALTH walking and cycling working group, which developed an online tool to assess the economic value of mortality reduced by regular walking and cycling. Today, this tool is used around the world to calculate the feasibility of building public infrastructure for walking and cycling.
For two years (2002-2003) we participated as curriculum consultants to UNICEF regardingUNICEF regarding the renovation of the schooling system in Kosovo; this collaboration led the elaboration of curricula for physical education in primary and secondary schools. As consultants in the field of physical education at the Council of Europe, we participated in the evaluation of the situation of physical education in Lithuania and in the elaboration of the Declaration on Physical Education adopted at the Ministerial Conference in Warsaw in 2002.
Current projects
1) SmartCHANGE - Chronic disease risk prediction with artificial intelligence
Project SmartCHANGE - an innovative solution for drastically reducing the risk of chronic non-communicable diseases.
Sustainable development goals indicators: health and well-being, quality education, industry, innovation and infrastructure, partnership for achieving the goals
Although the future may seem like something we can only speculate about, the Jožef Stefan Institute, in collaboration with the SLOfit research group of the Faculty of Sport of the University of Ljubljana, within the Horizon Europe program, is starting to develop an innovative solution that would enable better prediction and drastic reduction of the risk of developing chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs; e.g. cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, various forms of cancer) with the help of artificial intelligence. The project “AI-based long-term health risk evaluation for driving behaviour change strategies in children and youth” with the acronym SmartCHANGE will focus on developing more effective prediction of NCDs in children and adolescents in their adulthood. The precursors for these are already present in adolescence, but are not necessarily detectable with current methods of diagnosis.
The researchers will use advanced technologies and innovative approaches. With artificial intelligence tools, they will develop models on multiple databases of 24-hour behavioral patterns, physical fitness, biomarkers and NCD incidence, which will be able to forecast their risk of morbidity in adulthood as accurately as possible for children and adolescents. To this end, they will develop two applications: one for health professionals and one for citizens. The purpose of both will be to display health risks, broken down by risk factors, and recommended behavior changes to reduce them, in a way that is appropriate for a specific target group.
The developed solution will be validated with a proof-of-concept study, which will take place in four countries, involving different living environments, from family, school, primary and integrated care, and will be supported by dissemination and communication activities, specially tailored to selected target groups. One of these environments will also be in Slovenia and will be implemented within the SLOfit system. With the help of such a designed scientific advancement, we will enable all SLOfit users to better understand the development of NCD risks, significantly change the ways of coping with them and thus reduce the costs they cause in the health fund, while improving productivity and quality of life of people.
2) FitBack4Literacy (2023-2025)
FitBack4Literacy is Erasmus + Sport project coordinated by SLOfit team. It will bring together 10 partnering institutions across Europe, alongside several associated international organisations, in an effort to expand the Fitback network across research, educational and sport sectors. The overarching aim of FitBack4Literacy is to design and test an open, transnational fitness monitoring webtool to deliver pertinent feedback to educators, children, youth, and their parents as a means of directly enhancing Physical Literacy (PL) development for all. PL is a concept that includes the physical, social, cognitive, and emotional understanding that people develop to maintain physical activity at an appropriate, healthy level throughout their life. FitBack4Literacy will focus its activities at the local level (e.g., schools, sport clubs) to accelerate paediatric PL development via: 1) Involving teachers and coaches in a co-design process to upgrade the existing Fitback system by constructing a PL toolkit containing group reports and learning materials, 2) Leveraging the support of several international sport and physical education associations in engaging stakeholders in an attempt to reduce stigma, and support a positive experience around physical fitness testing, and 3) Evaluating the upgraded FitBack reporting system, including a novel, multi-lingual PL toolkit, which will be tested across eight European-wide sites to determine its feasibility and effectiveness in improving PL. All these activities will be conducted across varied sectors, socio-cultural environments, and child fitness levels. Through the main output of the project, an open, multilingual fitness reporting webtool, FitBack4Literacy will provide a novel tool to assist teachers, coaches and youth across Europe in the process of improving PL. In this way, FitBack4Literacy targets multiple UN Sustainable Development goals in its endeavour to disseminate fitness expertise across multiple sectors, supporting fostering long-term, positive health outcomes in youth.
3) QualiTePE - Quality of Teaching in Physical Education
1.1.2022-1.7.2024
In this KA2 Erasmus+ project, experts from different European countries are working on a common understanding of high-quality PE teaching and developing the so-called QualiTePE framework concept, which will determine and describe the central teaching dimensions and characteristics in PE. However, the question of what can be described as high-quality PE teaching depends on what educational goals and subject-didactic concepts are followed in national contexts in PE. For this purpose, we will initiate a Delphi survey with HEI instructors in the ten partner countries in an effort to achieve a general consensus on the matter. The QualiTePE framework concept to be developed in the project can then complement or transform teacher education in the European partner countries, thus contributing to a standardization and an increase in quality in the particular countries and throughout Europe. Taking the QualiTePE framework concept as a starting point, we will operationalize the formulated characteristics and dimensions of good PE teaching and develop the digital QualiTePE evaluation instrument. Teaching quality will be described via the assessment of (a) teachers, (b) observers, and (c) students on concrete teaching characteristics. On the basis of available questionnaire instruments and empirical studies, the QualiTePE evaluation instrument will be discussed by the partner countries in a circular process, validated consensually by the experts, tested in practice in several loops, and gradually revised. The criteria-based and multi-perspective assessment of teaching quality can form the precondition for a self-guided further development of teachers, for the development of a professional feedback culture, and for a corresponding instructional development. In addition, it can be used in effectiveness studies. The QualiTePE evaluation instrument thus can benefit the education and further training of teachers in PE, making the characteristics of good PE teaching “visible” and systematically improving mid- and long-term teaching quality.
4) PhysEd-Academy - Developing physical education teacher academy to strengthen the quality and attractiveness of the physical education teaching profession for positive youth health outcomes
1.6.22-31.5.25
PhysEd-Academy will directly address current challenges in school physical education (PE) and PE teacher education by improving four imperative quality factors: the purposes and content of PE; school teaching; teacher education; and continuous professional development (CPD). These will be achieved through mobility initiatives between PE teacher education institutions and PE teachers. PE is the one subject with the potential to provide young people with the skills, attitudes, knowledge, and understanding for a lifelong commitment to a physically active lifestyle and good health. In this way PE contributes to the global priority of decreasing the prevalence of physical inactivity by 15% in 2030. Yet, it fails in its current form. PE is built on old and inefficient traditions that are far from current recommended practices and policies, resulting in PE and teacher education having little or no impact on children and youth. By directly addressing the four quality factors and based on current evidence in PE and teacher education research, practice, and theory, PhysEd-Academy will develop and test innovative strategies and programs for initial PE teacher education and teachers’ ongoing CPD across Europe. This will lead to the development of a set of ‘signature pedagogies’ for learning across different PE teacher education programs, carrying the potential to improve the quality of PE and PE teacher education. The signature pedagogies will be tested by PhysEd-Academy partners in their respective initial teacher education and CPD programs subsequently boosting the attractiveness of the PE teaching profession. PhysEd-Academy is committed to becoming a key actor in improving PE and PE teacher education and will benefit local, regional, and international school PE and teacher education programs - with the ultimate aim of improving public health.
You can find more information visit: Home - PhysEd-Academy
5) Physical Literacy for Living in Society 5.0 (GIB5.0)
Well-developed physical competencies enable an individual to actively participate in various forms of physical activity in different physical (e.g., in the gym, on outdoor playgrounds, in water, on it and under it, on ice, snow, in the forest) and social environments (e.g., in kindergarten or school, in leisure time, at work, in homes for the elderly, in societies). By improving physical literacy, they become more confident in their movement and effectively enter into connections with the environment even in new and unpredictable circumstances. Knowledge about physical activity, physical capacity, motor skills and sports enables him to better understand his motor responses, learn new skills faster, develop a positive attitude towards short-term and lifelong physical activity and is simultaneously motivated for regular physical activity. Well-developed physical literacy thus helps an individual to create an active, healthy and fulfilling lifestyle.
Therefore, the purpose of the GIB5.0 project is to design a lifelong learning program for appropriate physical literacy for living in Society 5.0.
Namely by developing:
a) teaching modules for improving the motor competencies of different target groups of the population (children, adolescents, students, adults, elderly people, migrants/refugees, socially endangered),
b) teaching modules for a more motor-stimulating environment and
c) teaching modules for awareness of the importance of appropriate motor habits.
The goals of the GIB5.0 project are:
• Prepare lifelong learning modules for changes in motor habits, improvement of physical capacity and changes in the environment to increase physical activity that will increase sustainable mobility and improve attitudes towards nature and thus stimulate the green transition of our society.
• In lifelong learning modules practically use smart devices to monitor 24-hour motor behavior (24-UGV) and the SLOfit platform (which includes a website, My SLOfit app, several social networks) to improve digital competencies especially of the older population which will facilitate the digital transformation of our society.
• Prepare lifelong learning modules for improving physical capacity which will increase people’s well-being and productivity reduce absenteeism from work and thus accelerate smart sustainable and inclusive growth of society.
• Prepare lifelong learning modules for changes in motor habits which will influence the increase in quality of life of residents and reduce public and private expenditures for health maintenance and long-term care.
• Establish a system of micro-certificates for lifelong learning GIB5.0.
6) MRRC - SI AHA Competence Center for the Elderly
A multidisciplinary development and research center (MRRC) for social innovations in active and healthy aging has been established by the University of Ljubljana, with the support of project partners from the SI4CARE project. Its goal is to seek and provide new solutions and modern concepts for active and healthy aging in the ADRION regions.
The purpose of the center is to connect research institutions, municipalities, ministries, voluntary organizations, and other interested stakeholders in order to create modern concepts of active and healthy aging, stimulate social innovations, promote a positive attitude and a solidary future for all generations, with a focus on vulnerable groups, including the elderly.
The activities of the Competence center include organizing meetings and workshops, providing expertise in training and educating the elderly to improve their digital literacy and exchanging knowledge among stakeholders working in the field of active and healthy aging.
The institutions which are currently involved in the project are: Faculty of Economics, Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Sport, Biotechnical Faculty, Faculty of Social Sciences, Jožef Stefan Institute, Faculty of Health Sciences, Faculty of Social Work, Modra Faculty, National Institute of Biology and the Regional Development Agency LUR.
The Faculty of Sport sees its contribution to the center in promoting physical activity in adulthood and old age, which leads to increased physical capacity and consequently, a slowdown in the aging process and the onset or progression of various chronic non-communicable diseases, dementia, and other age-related illnesses.