Ways of Promoting Voluntary Physical Activity in Present-Day Society

Abstract

Addressing himself to the important question “Why coluntary gymnastics?”, Pierre Seurin (1968), President of the F. I. E. P., stated in a paper presented at an international congress in Madrid in 1966: “Greater health means greater happiness, less expense on (sic) the family level and greater social output” The world ‘health’ here (as in all studies of physical activity) refers not only to the absence of illness but also to the ability of the body to defend itself against and to tolerate these and other ‘attacks’ made upon it by the social environment, as well as to the ability to face current and future events in a favourable, creative, confident and optimistic way (Langlade 1980). Hilma Jalkanen (1961), who instigated the development of women’s gymnastics in Finland, put it concisely as follows: “Physical activity should engender ‘vigour’ in the individual, i. e. a strong taste for life, a readiness to lead a diverse and rich life.”