According to the Global Obesity Observatory, Saudi Arabia has one of the highest obesity rates in the world with 25% of its population suffering from this condition.

Ariyadiyah, the country's leading sports newspaper noticed that more people prefer to sit down to read about sports rather than play them, in a country where around 20.000 people die yearly due to obesity-related diseases, sports is more than a hobby, it’s a requirement to increase life expectancy and quality of Saudi Citizens.

On the other hand, Riyadh, a city with more than 7 million habitants, lacks public spaces designed to practice sports, so to address this situation we used this year's World Health Day to launch an initiative that turned our traditional newspaper into a place for sports and healthy habits around Saudi Arabia.

The campaign quickly became one of the fastest spreading and most talked about initiative of the year, capturing media attention and spreading a conversation about the need to tackle the deadly affects of obesity and diabetes. Citizens from all over the country shared their requests to implement more spaces like this in different areas. This is now becoming a reality where the Youth Sports Programme having commissioned us to create permanent courts across the country.

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A traditional newspaper turns for the first time ever into an outdoor ad that people can play sports on. The simplicity of the concept was that all we needed was paper and walls to create courts that would engage our community, with basically zero budget required as the newspaper already owned the printers. The idea that a newspaper can be a football and basketball court is in itself an innovation.

In the last 30 years Saudi Arabia has experienced an incredibly fast economic growth, changing the lifestyle of its habitants, this growth has produced the entrance of different fast food franchises while the habits of Saudis turned into a sedentary tendency.

These factors have resulted in the obesity epidemic hitting the country really hard, and its people suffering the consequences of diabetes and other obesity-related diseases. Now, developing initiatives that encourage sports is more important than ever.