First app of it’s kind launches in Bradford

JU:MP (Join Us: Move. Play), in collaboration with Born in Bradford (BiB), has launched Bestlife, the first FREE physical activity app of its kind, with a wide selection of activities and quests that immerses young people in the animated city of Bradford.

Young people and families can earn points and rewards for their personalised avatar, by completing lots of different fun activities, outdoors and at home, to feel good and move more!

The gaming app has lots of fun activities to try, from shooting hoops, running, skipping and push ups to frog squats, mindful walks and jumping jacks. The more activities young people complete, the more points they earn for rewards and prizes.

People can easily play the game alone, with friends or even compete as a group for more points. Families and friends can also complete fun activities together everywhere, without being tied to a place. So they can live their Best life whenever and wherever they are.

JU:MP insight shows young people value their digital world, and would be motivated to be active and get outdoors through an app. JU:MP’s Programme Director, Jan Burkhardt, said:

The app uses gamification and interventions, such as goal setting and rewards and other behaviour change approaches, to engage young people and their family members in active quests both at home and outdoors.

The great thing about Bestlife is that it has been co-designed with young people, and design features include avatars and gamification with personal and team goals!

JU:MP is also collaborating with Age of Wonder to get the app into the hands of as many of the district’s community as possible. Projected to be the ‘most important study of a generation’, Age of Wonder is a seven-year project looking at what influences a teenager’s journey from adolescence to adulthood.

It is also a digital platform that captures data for research. Data collection systems will link to the JU:MP app to better engage children in the programme and simultaneously collect data that can be analysed to help us understand what works well.

Professor John Wright, the Director of the Bradford Institute for Health Research (BIHR) and lead for the Born in Bradford programme, said:

This is such an exciting development for Born in Bradford. We have progressed from paper and pens to collect data when we started in 2007, through to computerised assessments and now to our own app.

We hope that Best Life will engage and entertain young people in Bradford but also allow us to collect important feedback from them about their mental health and physical activity.

Visit joinusmoveplay.org/bestlife to find out more and download the app!

Follow ‘Bestlife’ on social media via #BestlifeApp.

Join the JU:MP movement, along with over 10,000 family members in Bradford.