Kick-off largest physical activity study in the Netherlands Goal of Project ActiveLIFE is personalized physical activity

16 January 2025

It’s January, the month of new year’s resolutions, but also the time when the first challenges to keep them arise. It’s exactly this month that the ActiveLIFE project, the largest physical activity study in the Netherlands, begins. In this study, the health and activity behaviors of 60,000 participants will be closely examined with the aim of developing personalized recommendations. This large-scale research, conducted by Radboud university medical center and the Lifelines biobank, is supported by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, the Dutch Heart Foundation, and the Brain Foundation Netherlands. Together, they are committed to promoting a healthier and more active Netherlands. 

More than half of the Dutch population, around 56%, does not achieve the physical activity recommendations. This percentage is even higher among people with chronic conditions. It is well-known that an inactive lifestyle is a major risk factor for heart disease, brain disorders, and premature death, among other issues. Sufficient physical activity reduces this risk. 

The current Dutch physical activity guideline, from 2017, supports this. The guideline recommends 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity per week, but it is based on questionnaires, not actual activity behavior. As such, it doesn’t account for personal situations, health, and preferences, which means the advice may not optimally align with individual needs. The amount of exercise needed for a healthier life may differ from person to person. 

Project ActiveLIFE: Personalized exercise guidelines 

The new ActiveLIFE project aims to develop personalized physical activity recommendations that help everyone—whether healthy or ill, young or old—to achieve a physically active lifestyle. The goal of the project is to create a large Dutch dataset based on objectively measured characteristics, including information about physical activity (such as amount, intensity, type), sitting behavior (duration, sessions, interruptions), and sleep (duration). This data will be combined with information about other lifestyle behaviors (such as diet, smoking, and alcohol), health (including illness, medication, cognition, stress, and quality of life), and risk factors (such as blood pressure, heart and lung function, muscle strength, and biomarkers). Combining these data will provide new insights into how lifestyle impacts health and health outcomes. 

Accurate data thanks to activity meters 

The 60,000 ActiveLIFE participants will visit the research center twice for measurements, including blood pressure, body composition, and memory tests. They will also receive an accelerometer to track their habitual activities over eight days and nights. This approach allows researchers to collect detailed, objective data on movement, sitting, standing, and sleeping. Based on this data, more personalized and varied exercise advice will be developed, which could include not only the number of active minutes but also a recommended number of steps per day or maximum sitting time.

In this picture: Exercise physiologist and project leader Thijs Eijsvogels with the activity meter that will be used in this project.

‘Do what works for you’ 

Exercise physiologist and project leader Thijs Eijsvogels explains, ‘With ActiveLIFE, we want to create the world’s largest and most accurate dataset of thigh-worn activity meters. I am confident that this will enable us to develop personalized exercise guidelines, which will help us get and keep more people in the Netherlands moving. It is crucial that people, through a personalized approach, do something that works for them. Only then can they maintain it in the long term, as we know. This is also true for everyone with New Year’s resolutions: choose an activity that you enjoy.’ 

‘Working towards concrete goals’ 

Epidemiologist Esmée Bakker specializes in healthy physical activity behavior: ‘With ActiveLIFE, we measure participants' physical activity 24 hours a day. This allows us to build a rich database with a variety of activity patterns, which also provides insights into sitting behavior and sleep. In this project, we also aim to investigate the potential effect of replacing sitting behavior with movement, standing, or sleep. In this way, we can make the impact of behavior change on health more visible. This helps people make better decisions and possibly work towards concrete goals.’ 

In this picture: Co-project leader and epidemiologist Esmée Bakker.

About Project ActiveLIFE

This project is being set up by Radboud university medical center in collaboration with the Lifelines biobank, which collects data from participants in the provinces of Groningen, Friesland, and Drenthe. The project will run for a total of eight years, with interim results available sooner. It is supported by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, the Dutch Heart Foundation, and the Brain Foundation Netherlands. The project is led by exercise physiologist Thijs Eijsvogels and epidemiologist Esmée Bakker from Radboudumc, who is in the Talent Track, the program of Radboudumc for excellent young researchers. 

In this picture: participant of Lifelines biobank with the activity meter.

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