The children of Occitania invited to play sports: the “Live and move” 2024 challenge opens with the label great national cause

Sophie Béjean, Marc Ychou et Didier Jaffre font équipe. Midi Libre – SYLVIE CAMBON

Pendant un mois, près de 25 000 enfants de la région vont pratiquer une activité physique de manière ludique. L'initative régionale pourrait s'étendre.

In this Olympic year, they hope to break the record of 3.1 million cumulative energy cubes in 2023. The rector Sophie Béjean, the director of the Regional Health Agency (ARS) Didier Jaffre and the president of the Montpellier Cancer Institute (ICM) Marc Ychou, have just launched the great challenge "Live Move 2024", a regional initiative that continues to grow.

Since the first edition in 2013, inspired by an operation launched in Quebec, the three institutions have joined forces each year in March to encourage children aged 6 to 11 to practice an hour of sport daily , recommendation of all specialists to guarantee physical and mental well-being. "Studies have shown that 40% of cancers could theoretically be eliminated with this physical activity", recalls Marc Ychou, who therefore works on prevention , "a major issue" also to fight against "sedentary lifestyle, obesity and the illnesses that can result from it. However, recalls Sophie Béjean, 37% of 6-11 year olds and 73% of 12-17 year olds do not do this hour of work ;exercise. "But more than 80% of children who participated in the great Live Move challenge subsequently respected these recommendations."

15 minutes of continuous sport, 1 energy cube

Last year, there were nearly 25,000, from 177 schools in 115 municipalities in Aude, Gard, Hérault, Lozère, Pyrénées-Orientales, L& rsquo;Aveyron and Ariège to have participated. This year, all the departments of Occitanie will be represented, a success which pushed the Ministry of Sports to award the 2024 edition with the label "Great National Cause".< /p>

Concretely, to make the challenge fun, each child participating in the operation has a notebook, in which they record their level of daily physical activity throughout the month of March. A scale of transformation is presented, fifteen continuous minutes corresponding to an “energy cube”. The objective is obviously to accumulate as many as possible, whether at school, during an event organized by your municipality or even with your parents… which pays off more.

The impact of family

"The impact of the family on children’s physical activity practice is scientifically proven. The big challenge therefore offers the possibility of winning more energy cubes in this context to motivate them to practice more as a family", intervenes the director of the ARS Didier Jaffre. This is all the more relevant as prevention sometimes goes the other way. With this operation, it is also the children who can remind older children of the importance of practicing regular physical activity.

On this launch day, teachers, elected officials or representatives of clubs and associations participated in a seminar in Montpellier to have the right tools to win the challenge. Medal presentation in June.

All the information on the Vivez Bougez grand challenge website.

A challenge set to expand

It’is the ICM, via its "prevention" Epidaurus who had initiated the great challenge. Eleven years later, its president Marc Ychou would like to extend the operation in 2025, both to nursery schools, middle schools and high schools, "but also to adults, through companies", he said. The rector Sophie Béjean imagines another extension… in all schools in France, as in Canada. "Especially since this great regional initiative is fully in line with the invitation for all French people to move 30 minutes a day".

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