Increasing the level of physical activity in the Maroondah Community is likely to have a major impact on public health and therefore Maroondah City Council will prioritise the development and/or improvement of environments to support physical activity.
The Physical Activity Strategy 2015-2020 builds on the recommendations of Maroondah’s 2013 – 2017 Community Wellbeing Plan and the Maroondah 2040 Vision and sets actions for the next five years to address the Maroondah 2040community indicators of progress related to physical activity.
Lack of time is reported as the primary reason Maroondah residents do not undertake enough regular physical activity. This reasoning indicates the need to support environments for physical activity in a range of different settings such as schools, workplaces, residential streets and public open space and recognise that while sport is an important component; incidental exercise is of primary importance to increasing overall activity levels.
Furthermore information and education is essential to ensure that residents understand the importance of regular physical activity for health and wellbeing.The top five activities undertaken by Maroondah residents were reported as walking, aerobics/ fitness/gym, running/Jogging, cycling and swimming, acknowledging an increasing preference for physical activity pursuits that are non structured or pursuits that can be undertaken in one’s own time.
There are different factors that affect the physical activity levels of specific populations and therefore different strategies are required to overcome these. The Physical Activity Strategy highlights the challenges and opportunities being experienced by the general community and then focuses on six different specific populations in order to target specific actions which will have a positive impact on participation. For the general community a key challenge for engaging the general Maroondah community is the perception of, or real issue of not enough time. While many people are indeed time poor, time constraints is not the whole explanation.
For many it is a vicious cycle of, a lack of motivation fuelled by poor diet, sedentary behaviour and possibly poor sleeping habits which leads to feeling low on energy. To address this challenge and to make physical activity an easier option the strategy focuses on four key Council Priorities which highlight opportunities for Council action.
Physical Activity Strategy
Physical Activity Strategy(DOCX, 10MB)
Physical Activity Strategy(PDF, 3MB)