Vakgroep Menselijke fysiologie (MFYS)

Studies about students report a positive association between physical activity and health and cognitive function including, intelligence quotient, academic achievement, verbal tests, mathematics tests… in school-age children. For worksite physical activity interventions, positive health, social and economic effects were found.  Also in studies concerning elderly in a care home, the important effect of physical activity on maintaining cognitive function, independence and health was found.

Despite all these known benefits of being physically active, a large proportion of people in Europe and North America are physically inactive. In Flanders (Belgium), at least 66% of women and 40% of men in all age groups are physically inactive.

Many people report ‘a lack of time’ as a reason for not exercising, so if similar advantages would be found when incorporating this physical activity in the normally sedentary daily activity (school hours, working hours…), this argument for not exercising might be overcome. 

A possibility to incorporate this physical activity into the daily activity is by using a cycling workstation. This enables people to do their normal sedentary activities (like writing, computing, following lectures…) while pedalling at a low intensity.

Therefore, the purpose of this project is to examine the effects of incorporating daily cycling for half an hour to one hour on a cycling workstation on students’, office workers’ and elderly persons’ health, cognition and quality of life. And for the different target groups respectively, the effects on learning performance and focus (adolescents), productivity and absenteeism (office workers) and cognitive decline and independent functioning (older adults) will be examined.