“Sedentariness is a health time bomb.” In their July 2021 report on the evaluation of public health prevention policies, the deputies Marie Tamarelle-Verhaeghe (LREM) and Régis Juanico (Génération.s) draw up an alarming observation: the French are not moving enough. According to this report, 54% of men and 44% of women aged 18 to 74 are “overweight or obese”. More generally, up to 5 million deaths a year could be avoided if the world’s population were more active, reports the World Health Organization (WHO).
These bad indicators make “gives me shivers”observes with franceinfo Tony Estanguet, the president of the organizing committee of the Paris Olympics 2024. To encourage the French to put on their sneakers, doctors or elected officials rely on sport-health, the practice of physical activities contributing to being and health, physical, psychological and social, as defined by the department. They would have liked to see the subject at the heart of the campaign presidential. But two months before the election, there is almost no trace of this concept in the programs, speeches, or TV debates.
Not a word in Eric Zemmour’s roadmap (Reconquest!). Not a single line from Marine Le Pen (RN), even if she mentions health in her 22 measures for 2022. Nor is there anything in the Vélérie Pécesse (LR) program or in the key measures by Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI). In the course of her 70 proposals, Anne Hidalgo (PS) promotes, in one sentence, “sport practice” for its chronic disease prevention plan. Fabien Roussel (PCF) intends to increase the number of hours of sports activities “in the content of training, from kindergarten to high school”, but without mentioning the subject. In the end, only Yannick Jadot (EELV) made it a priority. So why such discretion?
Sport is good for health. So far nothing new. “What is innovative, is that science has proven that physical activity is a validated therapy in the treatment of chronic diseases, explains to franceinfo Roland Krzentowski, doctor, founder of My stadium, sports-health house, in Paris (property of the MGEN mutual). A sedentary lifestyle increases the risk of cancer, diabetes or cardiovascular disease. As proof, a 2017 study from the National Cancer Institute (INCa) showed the beneficial effects of physical activity in cancer patients.
In recent years, actions have been launched, in particular through the creation of sports and health centres, to allow patients to practice a sport while being supervised. Coming out of hospitals, “sick people, sedentary people, learn an activity [physique]“explained in October to franceinfo the Minister Delegate for Sports, Roxana Maracineanu. “In these places, where there are sports educators and health professionals, it is possible to bring people to regular physical activity, to perpetuate this habit.” Candidate Emmanuel Macron promised 500 such structures five years ago. Ultimately, 436 have been labeled, assures franceinfo the LREM deputy of Dear François Cormier-Bouligeon, president of the Sport group at the National Assembly.
If the right denounces a marketing coup, the defenders of the cause ensure that the signal is the right one. “Nothing is to be thrown away given where we are starting from. Sport and health centers are good, but things are not going fast enough”, regrets the ex-athlete Stéphane Diagana, entrepreneur in a sports-health campus in Mougins (Alpes-Maritimes). According to a study by the AP-HP, “in France, there are 20 million people suffering from chronic diseases”continues Martine Duclos, director of the sports medicine department of the Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital (Puy-de-Dôme).
“It’s not 500 sports-health houses that will solve all the problems.”
Martine Duclos, director of the sports medicine department of Clermont-Ferrand University Hospitalat franceinfo
Because the stakes seem high. During the Les Républicains primary, Michel Barnier, then candidate, had mentioned it on BFMTV: “A sporting country is a country that has morale, that spends less on its health and that knows how to include.” Since then, the former European commissioner has bowed to Valérie Pécresse and sport-health has disappeared from the radar. “I mostly see ego wars more than programs, I haven’t seen much going on”deplores for franceinfo Michel Cymes, the doctor of the PAF, present on France Télévisions, and signatory of a forum “For a France in shape”.
“Sport is unfortunately a theme that is rarely addressed in presidential campaigns. We talk about current issues, those that are divisive and sell more to the media. The place of sport in the campaign is up to the budget of the Status in this area: very poor”, deplores Michel Savin, senator from Isère and president of the Sports practices and major sporting events group in the Senate. Same spite at Stéphane Diagana : “It’s distressing! The subject may not be buzzing, but it would yield solutions and well-being. There is a disregard for what happens below the shoulders.”
For two years, the health crisis linked to Covid-19 could have changed the situation. Especially since some doctors had deplored the closure of sports halls during confinement. “The pandemic could have been a springboard. We are looking for vaccines, drugs, but physical activity is one”, observes Roland Krzentowski. “With a healthier population, we would have passed the pandemic in a less painful way, at the individual level as well as at the collective level”, Judge Stephane Diagana.
Could this lack of interest hide a contempt for physical activity in France? This is what deplores François Carré, cardiologist at the University Hospital of Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine), distressed by certain speeches. “‘Do you want us to put in place things whose fruits will be harvested in fifteen or twenty years, when we will no longer be in place?’ an elected official told me one day. I thought that politics meant putting myself at the service of others…”
The development of sport-health requires, it is true, reflection over the long term. “You have to look up and measure the results in terms of health and economics over four or five years, admits Michel Savin. The reflection should not be limited to a budget year. But for its supporters, the benefits are indisputable: reductions in expenditure devoted to the management of chronic diseases, creation of jobs that cannot be relocated for the supervision of physical activity practices, development of urban space, etc. .
“In 2018, an experiment called ‘As of the heart’ demonstrated that we could save 30% of the amount of care for patients with cardiovascular diseases by prescribing an appropriate physical activity”illustrates Régis Juanico, delegate in charge of sport in Yannick Jadot’s campaign.
To sustainably implement health-sports, some obstacles must also be overcome. Roland Krzentowski and Régis Juanico point out in particular the absence, in the university curricula of doctors, of training “on the benefits of physical activity, which are not studied enough, in prevention”. Another brake, the reimbursement of this care. For which activities? At what frequency ? By which route? “We need at least partial coverage of the prescription of adapted physical activity by Social Security”encourages Michel Savin.
“If he is elected, Yannick Jadot’s first measure will be the reimbursement of the first consultation for a physical activity adapted for chronic diseases.”
Régis Juanico, Generation.s MP for Isèreat franceinfo
Sport on prescription, in a way. On this subject, some local initiatives already exist. As early as 2012, the city of Strasbourg experimented with it in order “to promote the practice of a regular, moderate and adapted activity for patients suffering from stabilized chronic diseases”reports France 3 Grand Est. In one year, “nearly 800 prescriptions had been issued by more than 150 general practitioners”estimated in 2014 at 20 minutes Alexandre Feltz, current health assistant to the mayor of Strasbourg.
In addition, specialists insist on the need to review prevention messages. “A third of adults respect the national health nutrition program”which recommends consuming “at least five fruits and vegetables a day”was advancing in January 2021 Laurent Grandin, president of the French interprofession of fruits and vegetables. “Nutrition and five fruits and vegetables a day, it doesn’t work, the French don’t do itslice Martine Duclos. Promoting physical activity can work, but you have to give yourself the means.” Whether financial or human, while our health system shows its limits, according to the doctor.
“As with climate disasters, we know it’s going to fall on us, we know that the system won’t be able to hold on, but we don’t react, there is blindness.”
Martine Duclos, director of the sports medicine department at Clermont-Ferrand University Hospitalat franceinfo
For promoters of sport-health, hope may lie in the near future. In 2024, Paris will host the Summer Olympics. A horizon that should make it possible to put more physical activity back into the daily lives of the French. One of the axes of the famous “heritage” praised by the organizers. “If we have a less healthy population, we will have fewer champions, concludes Stéphane Diagana. The issue is not the medals, it’s health, because this one, we can’t do without it.” Here is a new motto: the important thing is to anticipate.