The Active Healthy Living Project
The Active Healthy Living Project focuses on research to improve the health and wellbeing of the local community in Loughborough by increasing engagement in physical activity.
Working in partnership with local communities, the Active Healthy Living Project will empower residents to identify and address key barriers to engaging in physical activity, helping Loughborough to become a national leader in active healthy living.
Working with residents and community leaders, the project will look at how open spaces and recreation facilities in and around Loughborough town centre are currently used, how this changes throughout the seasons, and the impact this has on wellbeing.
With support from Connected Loughborough, the project will explore why residents use different forms of transport, such as cycling, driving, and public transport, within the town centre to identify who uses them, when, and for what purpose.
Members of the local community will be included as part of the research team, actively contributing to the planning and delivery of activities that break down barriers to taking part in physical activity.
Supported by Charnwood Borough Council and local businesses, residents will use the expertise of researchers from Loughborough University to support the creation of healthier and more resilient communities, reducing the impact of public health issues such as obesity and cardiovascular disease.
The collaboration with the local community will serve as a guide for future health and wellbeing projects. This will help residents make lasting improvements in how they engage in physical activity, leading to better overall well-being.
Our team
Professor Fehmidah Munir
Professor of Health Psychology
Fehmidah is a Professor of health psychology in the school of sport, exercise and health sciences. She is co-leading the Active Healthy Living arm of the Healthy and Innovative Loughborough project. Fehmidah’s research expertise is on work and health, from examining lifestyle behaviours in the workplace to the way people with health conditions can improve their self-management of their health and wellbeing both at work and outside of work. Her research relates to the psychological, social and environmental factors that affect human behaviours and the relevant actions people take to influence behaviour change. She is currently piloting two real-world trials that look to improve the policies and practices around supporting the mental health and wellbeing of employees whilst they are on long-term sick leave and when they return to work.
Fehmidah’s development of evidence-based return-to-work toolkits with her colleagues has led to positive outcomes on the working lives of employees – from those diagnosed with cancer, to those with musculoskeletal problems or poor mental wellbeing. Her toolkits also provide guidance to managers in supporting both the work and wellbeing of their team members.
Professor Stacy Clemes
Professor of Active Living & Public Health
Stacy’s research focuses on the development, implementation and evaluation of behaviour change interventions designed to encourage people to sit less and move more.
Her research has investigated the impact of implementing sit-stand desks in the classroom and workplace environments, along with family-based and community-based activity interventions. As well as being involved with the Active Healthy Living arm of Healthy and Innovative Loughborough, Stacy is leading research investigating the impact of home/hybrid working on workers’ activity levels, sitting time, sleep and dietary behaviours, in addition to research focusing on underserved and at-risk occupational groups, particularly professional drivers.
Dr Dale Esliger
Reader in Digital Health
Dale leads a research group that focuses on the skilled deployment of novel digital health technologies (e.g., wearables) to quantify the dose-response relationship between physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and health. Dale’s research aims to robustly measure the dense phenotypes of study populations with a view to developing novel therapeutic paradigms for chronic lifestyle diseases.
Dr Nilam Khan
Research Associate - Mental Health and Return to Work Trial
Dr Nilam Khan is a Research Associate for the PROWORK Mental Health and Return-to-work toolkit, which forms part of the Mental Health and Productivity Pilot (MHPP), working alongside Professor Fehmidah Munir.
In 2022 and 2023, she worked as a Research Fellow for the Wellcome-funded longitudinal Born in Bradford birth cohort, where she recruited 20 schools onto the Age of Wonder project. Nilam was instrumental in providing outputs for the mental health and wellbeing pilot outcomes from BiB Age of Wonder and laid the foundations for future recruitment of schools and young people into the study. Her interest in health, wellbeing and lack thereof, of athletes, adolescents and adults continues into the PROWORK project.
Paul Lester
Research Associate in Active & Healthy Living
Paul works as a Research Associate on the Active Healthy Living arm of Healthy and Innovative Loughborough, working to empower residents from Charnwood to identify and address barriers to engaging in physical activity.
Paul has experience working in a variety of roles to address health inequalities, including as a Research Assistant on the Derby: A City on the Move project, which increased levels of physical activity in underserved populations across Derby, and formed the foundations of the Move More Derby partnership that continues to improve health and wellbeing today.