Municipal solutions: Better service chain for exercise counselling

Have you ever used the services of a personal trainer? I’m not surprised if you haven’t—after all, it’s quite an investment even if you’re working full-time, let alone studying. The first steps on the path towards an active lifestyle are often the most difficult ones, and professional support can make a big difference. Half of Finnish municipalities already offer professional exercise counselling services free of charge.

Because of the benefits, exercise counselling services should be integrated into the everyday health care of wellbeing services counties. Exercise counselling is an important part of preventive health care and can help increase physical activity and reduce the health risks of the lack of physical exercise. At its best, it can help students adopt an active lifestyle for the rest of their lives. Developing service chains in cooperation with student health care and university sports services is therefore essential.

Health care professionals should be provided with exercise counselling training that helps them to identify customers who could benefit from this service. According to research, good results have been achieved by prescribing exercise as a preventive treatment for mental health problems, for example.

Mini intervention as part of seamless service chains

Student life is often busy, and finding one’s way to sports services can seem overwhelming. To be effective and genuinely useful, exercise counselling needs to be easily accessible and linked to other wellbeing services.

When student health and university sports services work closely together with the wellbeing services county, students get the support they need as quickly and easily as possible. This can mean, for example, bringing up physical activity during health checks and smooth referral to exercise counselling. In addition, clear and simple digital access to services can reach a wider range of future sports enthusiasts.

Wellbeing services counties and municipalities should introduce more widely a mini intervention model to discuss the importance of exercise. This means simple and short discussions about the importance of exercise and possible obstacles. This approach is an effective way to motivate students to increase their physical activity and find the most suitable forms of exercise.

Mini interventions can be implemented as part of health care routines, but also as part of student wellbeing services in higher education. This helps to highlight the importance of physical activity in everyday contexts, without students having to seek exercise counselling.

Benefits of developing exercise counselling

By investing in the accessibility of exercise counselling and seamless integration of services, the holistic wellbeing of students can be improved. Research has shown that students who are physically active are healthier and their resilience and ability to study is better.

Wellbeing services counties can help to ensure that exercise counselling is high-quality, accessible and an integral part of students’ wellbeing services. By referring their customers to exercise counselling alongside other forms of treatment, doctors and other health care professionals can promote the health of their customers in a new way.

It is time to tailor exercise counselling to students’ needs and make it an integral and accessible part of wellbeing service chains.