Lack of exercise, stress and an unhealthy diet are responsible for many diseases and health problems. With the app “Pandocs”, the founders have set themselves the goal of motivating users to lead a healthier lifestyle and to integrate exercise and mental well-being into their everyday lives. The combination of fitness, mental health and nutrition coupled with rewards makes the app attractive and promising for a broad target group.

Christoph Huber and Alexander Altendorfer, two of the three managing directors of Pandocs,
explain the concept of the app: “With Pandocs, healthy activities are integrated into everyday life
and consciously promoted. Daily activity goals include walking, hiking, yoga, Pilates, stretching
and strength training. Quizzes and wellness challenges ensure improving sleep habits and raising
awareness of healthy eating, among other things. Various challenges motivate users to lead a
balanced lifestyle every day. If the challenges are successfully completed, not only virtual points
and a higher ranking in the ranking list await, but also real rewards.”

People move less today than they used to. Lack of exercise is thus one of the leading risk factors for health problems. More than one-third of adults and more than two-thirds of adolescents in the European Region do too little physical activity, according to WHO. Physical inactivity causes one million deaths per year and the loss of 8.3 million years of life. Pandocs supports users in tackling the lack of physical activity.

The Pandocs app was developed in collaboration with physicians and public health experts. The
content of the quizzes, the recipes and all workouts are created and quality-assured by various experts from the fields of sports science, dietetics and psychology. In addition, the project cooperates with various research partners, e.g. the University of Vienna, Hagenberg University of Applied Sciences, Wiener Neustadt University of Applied Sciences and St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences. For example, workouts were analysed and reviewed from a physiotherapeutic perspective, gamification for users was optimised, and technical possibilities for further developing the app were explored.