Everyone has a calendar age, but it may differ from your biological age. How old are you really? And more importantly, how do you feel about yourself? Health is a topic that applies to everyone. VU-Vital aspires to a vital lifestyle for VU employees and students and takes on the challenge of making the campus fit! We believe that a combination of scientific knowledge and the power of community will help bring about real change.
VU-Vital is a team of motivated students working together to promote a healthy lifestyle. For students, kickboxing and yoga workshops were organised last year to work on both physical and mental health. For VU employees, a survey was set up to have biological age measured through various cognitive and physical tests. Because to measure is to know, and this data helps gain insight into where the participants of this survey stand and what they can improve. A paper on biological age was also written based on this research.
The ambition is to extend this research into next year and link an intervention study to it. In addition, the team is open to new creative ideas in the field of health, vitality and biological age of VU staff and students.
The team consists of, on average, eight students who all have the motivation to create a cool project together. It is a good opportunity for students to gain experience by working more in practice, instead of only following theory during your study lectures. It is also fun to work together towards a common goal and realise projects. In short, a fun experience to have alongside your studies!
Supervisors/ambassadors: Bart Visser
Bart Visser is associate professor of Self-Management Support for Vital Movement. Bart was trained as a movement scientist and worked for years in various roles at the Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU). In 2010, Visser made the switch to the Hogeschool van Amsterdam (HvA), in the position of training manager and lector of remedial therapy - Daily Moving! Under his professorship, much research was done on strategies and interventions to coach people in optimising their exercise behaviour. Recently, Visser was appointed extraordinary professor at the VU University of Amsterdam. In this role, he aims to link the perspectives on research from the university and the University of Applied Sciences in the best possible way.
Supervisors/ambassadors: Hidde van der Ploeg
Hidde van der Ploeg is Professor of Physical Activity & Public Health at the Department of Public and Occupational Health of Amsterdam UMC. He holds a PhD (2006) and degrees in Epidemiology and Human Movement Science, all from the VU University Amsterdam.
He chairs the section Health Behaviour & Prevention in the Department of Public and Occupational Health, and co-chairs the Health Behaviors & Chronic Disease research program in the Amsterdam Public Health research institute.
His main research expertise is in physical activity and sedentary behaviours in relation to public and occupational health. His main focusses are on 1) physical activity and sedentary behaviour interventions, 2) epidemiology of physical activity and sedentary behaviour, 3) measurement and surveillance of physical activity and sedentary behaviours.
Experiences of previous students
Denise: 'As a health and lifesciences student, I am passionate about improving people's health. During my participation in VU-Vital last year, I learned how to work together multidisciplinary in a group and also conduct a scientific study. I really enjoyed working with the team and making an impact on the health and vitality of VU staff and students.'
Tessa: 'I think it's a fun year to look back on! It's a really nice team to work with and we were given all the freedom to set up different projects. Especially the research into the biological age of VU employees was incredibly cool to see develop. I myself study administrative and organisational science and had little substantive knowledge about biological age beforehand, but learned a lot about it last year. In addition, I, for instance, took care of the facilitation of the measurements during this research, so all qualities of team members were used to realise a strong project together.'
This team is linked to the Human Health & Life Sciences profile theme.
