FormalPara Key Points

Despite having extensive sports facilities and physical activity recommendations, physical activity levels are declining in Finland.

The most dramatic decrease in physical activity within the Finnish population occurs around puberty, when girls become less active than boys.

One of the possible reasons for increased inactivity may be that the design of built environments does not consider psychological or social affordances for physical activity.

1 Introduction

It has been well-documented that physical activity has many positive effects on individuals’ health, well-being and cognition [1, 2]. Many countries have adopted recommendations and guidelines for sufficient daily amounts of physical activity in order to help people obtain positive health benefits from physical activity [3]. For example, according to the Finnish national physical activity recommendations, children in early education (below 7 years of age) and students in elementary school (7–12 years) should be physically active 2 h a day [4, 5]. In secondary schools, the recommendation is for 90 min of physical activity a day [5]. According to the physical activity recommendations directed at children and adolescents, physical activity should be moderate-to-vigorous activities implemented in a variety of ways suitable for each age group [4, 5]. The World Health Organization (WHO) [3] and US physical activity guidelines [6] recommend that all children and adolescents should attain moderate-to-vigorous levels of physical activity (MVPA) for at least 60 min per day. Self-reported (3071 participants) and objectively measured (698 participants) Finnish studies have indicated that only 46 % of 3-year-old preschool children [7], approximately 50 % of primary school students (7–12 years) [8, 9] and 10–17 % of secondary school students (13–15 years) [8, 9] attain at least 60 min of MVPA a day. A declining number of individuals reaching the recommended weekly physical activity level across age groups is a particularly strong trend among Finnish youth when compared with other countries [10].

Physical activity recommendations for adults in Finland [11], following WHO recommendations [3], suggest that adults should undertake a total of at least 2 h 30 min per week of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity. This total can be accumulated in repeated bouts of at least 10 min in duration. Alternatively, one can perform vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity with an accumulated total of at least 1 h 15 min per week. Furthermore, it is recommended that everyone should undertake muscle-strengthening and balance training activities at least twice a week. Research has demonstrated that 16 % of Finnish adults (20–54 years old) fulfil both sides of the physical activity recommendation, i.e. do enough aerobic physical activity and muscle training, with men achieving this somewhat less (15 %) than women (17 %) [12]. If only balance or muscle strengthening physical activity is included in the analyses, the number of adults in this age group fulfilling the physical activity recommendation increases to 36 %. Still, current data indicate that almost half (48 %) of the Finnish adult population have an insufficient level of physical activity [12].

Insufficient levels of physical activity in Finland have contributed to an increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity among the population [3]. This has been identified as a major cost to the Finnish economy, responsible for 1.7–7 % of total healthcare costs [13] and an estimated €330 million in health and social care costs in 2011, equating to €61/inhabitant [14]. When the increasing prevalence of lifestyle diseases such as type 2 diabetes mellitus is taken into account, the total cost of insufficient levels of physical activity in Finland is estimated to be approximately €1–2 billion annually, or approximately €185–370/inhabitant [15]. Consideration of all of these factors shows that one of the future challenges for Finnish society is to increase physical activity engagement within all age groups. Studies conducted in the Finnish population have also indicated that girls are less active than boys [8, 10]. Additionally, it has been recognised that the most dramatic decrease in physical activity within the Finnish population occurs at puberty [16]. These findings concerning physical activity participation in girls, especially during adolescence, have raised special concerns in the Finnish public health system in the past few years and related changes have been made to the physical education curriculum. The aim of the new curriculum [17], which will commence implementation in autumn 2016, is to promote physical, social and psychological well-being and physical activity as well as to reduce levels of inactivity during the school day.

Physical activity engagement has been explained and understood by many models of behavioural change and participation motivation in combination with enhanced provision of facilities and access to leisure physical activity environments, such as parks, nature parks and forests [16, 18–21]. These models explain different psychological, social and physical factors of physical activity engagement. However, the theory of ecological dynamics [22–24] may also provide a useful framework for understanding physical activity participation because of its emphasis on the person–environment relationship as a relevant scale of analysis. To date, there have been few attempts to utilise an ecological dynamics approach in studying the engagement process in physical activity (but see Davids et al. [25] for an exception). The ecological dynamics framework considers the continuous interactions between individuals and an exercise environment, suggesting that human behaviours in these environments can be predicted by the utilisation of affordances or opportunities for action [23]. Affordances can be seen as invitations to act or behave in a particular environment. Environments where people are engaged in physical activity may include a variety of physical, psychological and social affordances that may increase or decrease the possibility to engage in physical activity. Therefore, physical activity participation may be analysed usefully from the perspective of affordances that are designed into activity-enhancing environments.

In Finnish built environments, there are many possibilities for physical activity, yet people are still rather inactive. The specific purposes of this article are to (a) review Finnish built physical activity environments, physical activity organisation, legislation and financing; and (b) discuss the role of physical, psychological and social affordances of physical activity environments in relation to physical activity participation. We argue that one of the possible reasons for increased inactivity of people may be that the design of built environments does not include psychological affordances for participation in physical activity.

2 Built Physical Activity Environments in Finland

In Finland, the Government and public authorities have made substantial efforts to enhance physical activity in the entire population through legislation, financing the building of physical activity environments and supporting the activities of sports clubs.

Data on Finland’s sport facilities are collected in the national public Geographic Information System (GIS), the LIPAS database [26], which contains nationwide geographic and economic information for Finnish sport sites, recreational areas and outdoor routes, including a total of 33,620 sport facilities. The LIPAS database is maintained by the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences at the University of Jyväskylä (Jyväskylä, Finland) and is funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. The database is updated by the Finnish municipalities (local authorities) and includes mainly publicly funded and maintained sport sites. As the information gathering and updating is delegated to local authorities, the LIPAS database might include some outdated data. Despite this challenge, however, the database still gives a good overall picture of the state of Finnish sports facilities.

The most common sports facilities in Finland are outdoor fields and sports parks, with one site per 411 citizens. Other common built environments are indoor facilities (one site per 827 citizens) and cross-country sports facilities (one site per 851 citizens). The classification and number of sports facilities in Finland is given in Table 1.

Table 1 Classification of built physical activity facilities in Finland
Full size table

In Finland, public policies have played a substantial role in physical activity promotion. The first Sport Act was passed in 1980 with the aim of promoting equality by sports bodies and in sports by providing equal sports services and facilities regardless of living location, sex or socio-economic status. Sport was viewed as an appropriate vehicle to promote health and to reduce disparities in well-being between citizens of different social classes. The main stipulations in the Sports Act were for the building of physical infrastructure and facilities and financial support to the third sector (sports clubs, organisations, etc.). The Act stipulated that the public sector would be responsible for building and maintaining the sports infrastructure and facilities, while the third sector would take responsibility for national and local sports activities [27].

In 2013, the Ministry of Education and Culture funded initiatives designed to enhance physical activity and sports with a grant of €147 million (€27 per inhabitant). Physical activities for children and adolescents were also supported by the Government through grants to voluntary sports organisations (€43.9 million in 2012) and programmes (€5.5 million in 2012) [28]. Government aid also supports the organisation of sport activities by municipalities at a cost of around €12 per inhabitant.

3 The Role of Sports Clubs

The Finnish sports system relies strongly on local-level sports club activities. There are about 9000 active sports clubs in Finland [29]. Finnish clubs are mainly based on voluntary civil activity, non-profit-making, funded by their members, and targeted at children and adolescents [30]. A recent national report highlights that a competitive orientation, early commencement of club activities and focusing on one sport domain are prevailing trends in club activities for youth [31]. Overall, about half of Finnish children and adolescents actively participate in sports club activities, although there is a strong declining trend with age during adolescence [10, 31]. In comparison, about 15–20 % of adults participate in club activities [30, 32].

4 Discussion

There are 33,620 built physical activity environments in Finland; however, the majority of the population is still very inactive. It is noteworthy that between the ages of 11 and 13 years Finnish children are considered physically very active in international comparisons, but activity levels decrease rapidly after 13 years of age compared with other developed countries [10]. We may thus infer that built environments are not enough to invite large cohorts of people to participate in physical activity and that, therefore, the design of physical activity should also be taken into account. It is possible that current built physical environmental design does not fulfil people’s needs regarding participation in physical activity. Different psychological and motivational theories can provide useful frameworks to take into account when planning and building physical activity environments and what is included in them, including psycho-social constraints to engaging in physical activity. Further research about how these theories can be applied in an ecological dynamics context to promote physical activity is needed.

We have argued here that psychological and social needs can be seen as environmental psycho-social affordances that invite people to participate in physical activity, or to reject these opportunities for action. Special emphasis should be placed on understanding how to build affordances for motivating people of different age groups for physical activity. Modern mobile and sensor technologies provide new opportunities for environmental design to enhance physical activity by using digital technology to motivate and measure people’s movements in sensory-rich, mediated, multimedia environments. They also allow creation of opportunities to explore, discover, create and adapt people’s relationships with both physical and virtual elements and objects as well as with other people who are both nearby and physically remote. Modern technologies provide design opportunities to use perceptual systems (e.g. visual, somatosensory, acoustic) to develop physical, cognitive, emotional and social skills and experiences through the medium of movement, thus fulfilling people’s psycho-social needs. Interactive sound and music elements can also be designed into environments (i.e. play landscapes). When coupled coherently with the person’s actions and movements, sonic feedback potentially ‘resonates’ with our spatio-kinaesthetic knowledge and imagination, and may even result in tactile sensations related to a movement [35].

With the aim of promoting physical activity, it is proposed that more design- and content-oriented approaches to infrastructure and environment planning should be used. Besides having affordances for physical activity, the environment should also be suitable for different purposes that fulfil other psycho-social needs, e.g. arranging events, having picnics, meeting friends, etc., where people fulfil their psycho-social needs and are also attracted to participating in physical activity and training in the form of an activity, play or game, such as Frisbee golf. It has to be noted that psycho-social needs differ between age groups and affordances for physical activity are different between user groups (i.e. children, families, elderly, special groups, etc.) as some prefer play, skills, enjoyment or socialising and others prefer physical performance or competition.

Some examples of the new approach can be seen in commercial solutions, e.g. in street workout equipment and parkour parks where autonomy and competence are enhanced by providing several options for exercises. Other examples also include smart tags and codes to allow online video streaming of exercise instructions. Unfortunately, these good examples have not yet been fully utilised at a system level. Affordances for physical activity could also be implemented in everyday settings. Examples of this could be the use of surface materials and designs inside a grocery store to invite balance skills being practised, public spaces where people meet having street workout equipment and playgrounds being designed for adult physical activity also.

5 Conclusion

The ecological dynamics theoretical framework suggests that affordances are both subjective and objective. This means that they should be seen as invitations for action [33]. However, since they are invitations, they can be accepted or rejected by people. Therefore, when we design physical activity facilities, we should understand how to design different affordances for physical activity. After all, an affordance for a young child to be active is different from an affordance for an elderly person to be active. The same consideration applies to males versus females, people of different cultures, and able-bodied and disabled people, etc. Therefore, a whole landscape of affordances needs to be designed so that different individuals with different needs are invited to engage in physical activity [34]. This approach requires a multi-disciplinary collaboration between ecological dynamists, developmental psychologists, gerontologists, educators, movement scientists, sociologists, urban planners, designers and engineers.