Hundreds of people in Salford are to take part in filming a host of public experiments to test the health of their lifestyles. Salford shopping centres and offices will turn into temporary gyms in the next few days with people being asked to put down their shopping, loosen their tie and join a fitness class in the middle of their day.
Other experiments will include a healthy muscle-man parking the “healthy food mobile” outside a takeaway restaurant to convince customers to ditch the fish and chips and try a nutritious chicken and vegetable wrap instead. It will also challenge shoppers in the Lowry Outlet Mall to a healthy cafe “choice-chamber” experiment. People will choose a “naughty” or “healthy” table at our temporary cafe to buy a range of healthy options like oatmeal cookies or sugar-free chocolate over the likes of a cream cake.
The trials are part of a three-month public research project being run by health organisation “LINk in Salford” with the assistance of public health experts at Salford University. It's designed to help local health officials create strategies to encourage more people to try exercise and nutritious foods. The experiments will capture on film the public's reaction to exercise and health foods. The footage and an accompanying statistical report will be used to make recommendations to Salford health officials and NHS commissioners who will be legally obligated to respond to the research.
“There is an assumption that people who live in Salford are generally unhealthy or not willing to do exercise, but it's likely to be completely untrue, so we're taking the tests out to the people to find out,” explains film researcher Jonathan Kalmus, who's behind the project. “The point of producing a research film is so health officials can see and hear what Salford residents actually want from health promotion services or even if they want them at all. It avoids second guessing or producing mountains of research paperwork which is rarely read. The film will be entertaining, have high research value and will be publicly screened in April.”
Dr. Lindsay Dugdill, Director of the Public Health Research Unit at Salford University says the innovative experiments will reveal a lot about Salford's healthy antics. “Most people already do a recommended exercise routine everyday, but they may not realise it. You don't have to get dressed up into lycra and join an expensive gym, things like vacuum cleaning, DIY or walking to the shops are all officially recommended ways to keep fit. This project will help test if people are actually being more healthy than they think and work out ways to get people who aren't to do a little bit more.”
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