Alongside a balanced diet, it is essential to get enough exercise. In the long term, staying active increases well-being. For many years we have supported a wide range of activities that promote sport and exercise for young and old people throughout Switzerland.
We are committed to achieving a long-term increase in the amount of exercise people do and support around 50 events nationwide suitable for both young and old. These include sports events such as the Engadin Ski Marathon, the Coop Beach Tour, gymnastics festivals, the National Park Bike Marathon and Sportissima in Ticino.
We also support two of the largest mass-participation sporting events in Switzerland, the Coop Community Duel and Coop Andiamo. We have partnered with the health projects «Fit4Future» and «Gorilla» to encourage children and young people to exercise more and continue to exercise, and since 2016 we have also been partners of Stiftung Schweizer Sporthilfe (a foundation for the promotion of sport in Switzerland) and Swiss Paralympic, which promote sport at a professional level.
Exercise is particularly important for the development of children and young people. We are partners of the school projects fit4future and Gorilla run by the Cleven Foundation and the Schtifti Foundation respectively. Through these initiatives we are able to engage with around 225,000 young people aged 6 to 12 each year and make them aware of the need for a healthy lifestyle and regular exercise. The «fit4future» project was launched in 2015 and has now become Switzerland's largest health promotion campaign. The national Gorilla project has been set up to promote healthier lifestyles to young people of secondary school age.
Our guidelines oblige us to severely limit the amount of food advertising we target at children. This is one way in which we are fulfilling our responsibility to children and families. The restriction does not extend to products that meet specific nutritional criteria.
An example of health protection: The wall paints we have developed specifically for children's rooms contain no plasticizer or solvents, thus creating a safe and healthy environment. When dealing with our producers at home and abroad we also attach great importance to health protection and meeting all legal requirements.