Telling real people’s physical activity stories: watch the How Do You Move? videos

New videos have been launched today, telling the physical activity stories of a group of Bristolians.

The How Do You Move? project explores how people incorporate physical activity into their daily lives, despite circumstances and surroundings that encourage inactivity. The project includes four physical activity story videos:

Abiir’s story

Abiir lives in Easton in Bristol and has four young daughters. She spent her childhood in Germany, and is now a keen advocate for increasing cycling in the Somali community.

Ben’s story

Ben is a community activist in Bedminster, Bristol. He’s retired and spends a lot of his time working with local people to improve the neighbourhood, particularly to make it more pleasant and accessible for walking.

Lesley’s story

Lesley works full-time managing a large university department, as well as juggling family life with her partner, two teenage daughters and two dogs. She came to running later in life and is now an active part of the running community in Staple Hill, Bristol.

Vince’s story

Vince lives in Bedminster in Bristol and has strong links to Knowle West and Hengrove where he grew up. Despite health issues, he’s used the support available in South Bristol to help maintain both his mental and physical wellbeing.

The launch event on 22 January 2020 included a screening of these four films. The audience also heard from Stephen and Nikki, who also participated in the project. They are husband and wife who both work in the NHS. They have experienced physical and mental health challenges in the last 10 years. Physical activity has helped improve their wellbeing.

How Do You Move? is a collaboration between researchers at the National Institute for Health and Care Research Applied Research Collaboration West (NIHR ARC West) and the arts charity Knowle West Media Centre (KWMC).

How Do You Move? involved a series of workshops with different groups of people from Bristol to explore their reactions to the guidelines and how they’d like them to be communicated. One of the overriding messages from these workshops was that people wanted to hear recommendations from ‘people like them’, which inspired the films and stories launched on 22 January.

Seed corn funding from the Brigstow Institute, University of Bristol allowed this project to get off the ground.