While public health has been a hot topic since entering the 21st century, we’ve been facing lately an increased rate of unhealthy behaviors such as sedentary lifestyle and insufficient physical activity levels due to the long months of lockdown during the recent pandemic. (for more read our previous article ¹). Such phenomena significantly affect not only our health but also represent a burden to society. Today, healthcare professionals, communities, and governments are on their mission to tackle physical inactivity and the growing number of consequences it causes. In addition, it has been reported that workers spend around 70% of their time at work sitting.^2,3 Unfortunately, an increasing number of people spend their time sedentary and do not fulfill even the minimum physical activity prescribed by the World Health Organization (WHO). Exercise is medicine, an old phrase that becomes more important every day. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) minimum of physical activity that needs to be archived is 150 min/week of moderate physical activity or 75 min/week of vigorous-intensity physical activity or the equivalent of a mixture of these two.⁴ That’s the minimum requirement of physical activity, while it takes around 300 minutes of moderate physical activity per week to feel the benefits of physical activity on our health.⁵ Still, promoting an even more physically active lifestyle, with various types of different recreation activities, could fill the gap and contribute even more to subjects’ health and well-being. If we look back throughout history, humans were always more physically active than today. This phenomenon could be the consequence of manual production and a lower standard of living. The development of technology has enabled people to conform, which many individuals cannot handle in the best way. Consequently, we come to the increasing occurrence of metabolic diseases and illnesses caused by physical inactivity and an unbalanced diet.⁶

According to the American College of Sports Medicine, obesity has been considered a chronic disease since 2013.⁷ Obesity is associated with many chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, etc.⁸

Alarming trends of obesity are reported in GCC countries. For example, the obesity rates among adults in Kuwait are estimated at 37%, followed by Saudi Arabia (35%) and Qatar (34%), while in UAE is around (31%).¹⁰ Several reasons lead to this problem, but insufficient physical activity levels and an unbalanced diet are probably the leading ones. Thus, better control of obesity has the potential to dramatically reduce the burden of chronic illnesses treated by primary care physicians and other healthcare providers.

The Global Wellness Institute (GWI) urged Governments to integrate sports and wellness in their policies.¹² GWI’s primary goals are to prevent disease and enhance the overall quality of life. One of their missions is to raise awareness of the authorities to recognize the importance of physical activity and the importance of a growing wellness economy. Despite the challenges, the governments in the GCC, however, are taking more serious actions to integrate sports in their communities and promote sports activities. We could see a number of Government initiatives addressing the development of more public parks and setting the increase of the public sport participation rate among their priority targets.

Dubai has built powerful sports communities. You will remember how we mentioned in the previous article Copenhagen, today, it is time to talk about Dubai. Since Dubai has multiplied 80 times from 40,000 people in 1960 to 3.3 million in 2020, the urban and built area of the emirate increased 170-fold from 3.2 square km. These changes were followed by healthy and green urban plans to make Dubai a more desirable city for living. It is planned that green and recreational spaces will double in size by the end of 2040.¹⁴ Additionally, nature reserves and rural natural areas will constitute 60 percent of the emirate’s total area.¹⁴

In addition to sports communities that provide individuals with a handful of options to be physically active, Dubai hosts a wide array of major international sports events, with many of them recurring annually. Dubai Sports Council, for instance, encourages the development of sport such as cycling throughout the region, intending to increase community participation to fight against health issues such as obesity and diabetes, especially among local Emiratis.¹³ Dubai has invested a lot in its infrastructure, and today it is undoubtedly one of the most developed cities in the GCC region. This accompanied the sports infrastructure in many fitness centers, gyms, fields for various sports and recreational activities, and bicycle tracks. Residents of Dubai can also find a gym at their buildings. In addition, the Emirate is renowned for its sports communities such as: Emirates Golf Estate, Dubai Sport City and Dubai Motor City.

Dubai Sports Council (DSC) has gone one step further and signed a long-term contract with a leading global technology solutions provider¹⁶ to bring a new age of multi-experience to sports fans and ecosystem players, including event organizers, sporting venues, equipment providers, devices, coaches, and more. The key success factors that have positioned Dubai as a globally competitive sports destination are tourism attractiveness, good event management, and the diversity of events hosted in the region. A hint of few of the most prominent sports events in Dubai, we mention:

• Dubai Run presented by Mai Dubai (Marathon)
• Omega Dubai Desert Classic (Golf)
• Dubai Polo Gold Cup (Polo)
• Desert Warrior Challenge (Challenge Race)
• Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships (Tennis)
• Spinneys Dubai 92 Cycling Challenge (Cycling)
• Dubai World Cup (Horse Racing)
• T20 Cricket World Cup (Cricket)
• Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens (Rugby Seven)

Such initiatives make Dubai an attractive city for all tourists, and make Dubai a desirable city for living. The provision of such initiatives and opportunities will undoubtedly continue.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is actively revamping its communities’ infrastructure to enhance sports participation. The Quality-of-Life program, as part of Vision 2030, has a plan to promote sports activities in communities, improve the living conditions of expatriates, improve the urban landscape across the Kingdom and upgrade the quality of the public service.¹⁵

Opportunities exist; the only question is up to whether we will take advantage of them. The question remains, how technology will help engage communities and push people to be more active – this will be the topic of our next article.

About DUDI

DUDI is an all-sports social marketplace. Our mission is to empower sports communities and we aim to increase sports participation rate in the GCC region through community engagement and technology.

– copyrighted by DUDI Sports Technologies FZE

References:

1. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/covid-19-impact-sedentary-behavior-obesity dudisportstechnologies?trk=organization-update-content_share-article
2. Thorp, A. A., Healy, G. N., Winkler, E., Clark, B. K., Gardiner, P. A., Owen, N., & Dunstan, D. W. (2012). Prolonged sedentary time and physical activity in workplace and non-work contexts: a cross-sectional study of office, customer service and call centre employees. International journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity, 9(1), 1-9.
3. Wallmann-Sperlich, B., Chau, J. Y., & Froboese, I. (2017). Self-reported actual and desired proportion of sitting, standing, walking and physically demanding tasks of office employees in the workplace setting: do they fit together?. BMC research notes, 10(1), 1-6.
4. WHO, W. (2010). Global recommendations on physical activity for health. Geneva World Heal Organ, 60.
5. Strath, S. J., Kaminsky, L. A., Ainsworth, B. E., Ekelund, U., Freedson, P. S., Gary, R. A., … & Swartz, A. M. (2013). Guide to the assessment of physical activity: clinical and research applications: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association. Circulation, 128(20), 2259-2279.
6. Bastien, M., Poirier, P., Lemieux, I., & Després, J. P. (2014). Overview of epidemiology and contribution of obesity to cardiovascular disease. Progress in cardiovascular diseases, 56(4), 369-381.
7. Curry, S. J., Krist, A. H., Owens, D. K., Barry, M. J., Caughey, A. B., Davidson, K. W., … & US Preventive Services Task Force. (2018). Behavioral weight loss interventions to prevent obesity-related morbidity and mortality in adults: US Preventive Services Task Force recommendation statement. Jama, 320(11), 1163-1171.
8. Tronieri, J. S., Wadden, T. A., Chao, A. M., & Tsai, A. G. (2019). Primary care interventions for obesity: review of the evidence. Current obesity reports, 8(2), 128-136.
9. Sharma, A., Mittal, S., Aggarwal, R., & Chauhan, M. K. (2020). Diabetes and cardiovascular disease: inter-relation of risk factors and treatment. Future Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, 6(1), 1-19.
10. AlAbdulKader, A. M., Tuwairqi, K., & Rao, G. (2020). Obesity and Cardiovascular Risk in the Arab Gulf States. Current Cardiovascular Risk Reports, 14, 1-9.
11. Khoja, T., Rawaf, S., Qidwai, W., Rawaf, D., Nanji, K., & Hamad, A. (2017). Health care in Gulf Cooperation Council countries: a review of challenges and opportunities. Cureus, 9(8).
12. https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/wpcontent/uploads/2018/10/Research2018_v5webfinal.pdf
13. Gericke, A. (2019). Sport sponsorship as a community engagement tool: Spinneys Dubai 92 Cycle Challenge (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pretoria).
14. https://u.ae/en/about-the-uae/strategies-initiatives-and-awards/local-governments-strategies-and-plans/dubai-2040-urban-master-plan
15. https://www.vision2030.gov.sa/v2030/vrps/qol/
16. https://www.zawya.com/mena/en/story/Dubai_Sports_Council_DSC_signs_exclusive_technology_partnership_agreement_with_Tecnotree-WAM20211021111417967/