Minor in Physical Activity and Health [30.0] - MINIEPR

The minor in  "physical activity, health and culture of movement"(French acronym: APSC) opens up the world of physical and sporting activity to the student as an additional subject to his/her major. 

The student is thus able to acquire skills in the health management field via physical and sporting activity, skills which will be of use to him/her straight away during his/her time as a student and then later in adult life. 

What are the main physiological changes our bodies undergo as they react to physical strain and exercise? What are the psycho-social factors that mean that some people take up regular physical activity and keep it up? What is the psycho-socio-economic cost of a sedentary lifestyle? What are the conditions for safe sport? 

The answers to these questions provide the student with the analytical keys s/he needs to judge the benefit physical and sporting activity can have on our health. 

The aim of the course is to imagine an academic who him/herself practices a high-level physical activity and, as a socio-economic player, is aware of the fight against a sedentary lifestyle in terms of human development,  as an element of public health and socio-economic efficiency.

The course does not aim to train movement professionals (teachers, trainers, high-level sportsmen/women or other players in the sporting and physical activity arena). 

The minor thus provides the academic to the culture of movement.

Skills to be acquired

Once s/he has completed the minor, the student will have acquired the following skills:  

1. S/he is highly aware of the contribution that physical and sporting activity (French acronym: APS) can make to the health (French acronym: OMS) of a person as part of a balanced amount of physical, psychological and socio-environmental factors. 

2. S/he has the relevant analytical tools at his/her disposal to form the link between physical or sporting activity and health, enabling him/her to see the value of proposed actions  (cf skill 6). More specifically:

• basic knowledge of how the physiology of the body adapts to different types of strain (foundations);
• the role of the elements surrounding the practice of physical activities making it a healthy activity (nutritional factors, APS in a hot or polluted atmosphere, etc)
• the cost for society and business of a sedentary lifestyle 
• the link between APS, stress and mental and physical fatigue,
• conditions for practicing sport safely (protecting your back- in movement and position, etc) 
• basic knowledge of how to be sufficiently motivated to practice sport on a regular basis. 

3. S/he experiments with the representative techniques in the area of the motivity of physical conditioning, body protection (safety) and well-being (health).

4. S/he can evaluate his/her own needs by analyzing simple indicators. 

5. S/he analyzes his/her own assessment of his/her body through his/her APS practices by working on the reflexive dimension.

6. S/he is able to evaluate what is offered to him/her. S/he analyzes proposed operations: based on physiological, sociological criteria, peculiar to a health-related APS. I