European Fitness Monitoring System

Background The European guidelines on health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA) identify monitoring as a key area for promoting HEPA. Following the European recommendations for monitoring fitness, especially in youth, the European Fitness Monitoring System (EUFITMOS) project aimed to create a European network for monitoring fitness in youth. This project bridged the gaps between knowledge, guidelines, concepts for monitoring and assessment among countries and different sets of indicators on fitness. Objectives This project’s aim is to create a European network for monitoring fitness in youth to use fitness as an indicator of health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA). Three main objectives were sought: 1) Obtain a better understanding of the status quo of youth fitness; 2) Convert knowledge and outcomes from former monitoring and assessment fitness batteries into a standardised battery to assess fitness; 3) Create an online platform to support the European network for monitoring fitness. Implementation The European Fitness Monitoring System (EUFITMOS) project was developed for three years in 4 phases. The first phase consisted of a diagnosis of the fitness assessment practices and of the European youth fitness levels. The second phase was preparing and training physical education teachers for a fitness assessment. The third phase was the data. The fourth phase was the development of an online platform with all the data collected and outputs produced by the project. Achievements During the project, a standardised manual and toolkit (translated to each partner’s language) were developed to provide physical education teachers with tools to assist them in the fitness assessment. An online platform was created, where teachers can students’ fitness data and access individual reports comparable with other countries. Also, several publications were made available, including country and international reports on youth fitness for 2022.