Fitbit making females aware about physical activity: Study

During a recent study, a group of researchers representing the University of Wisconsin-Madison has found that use of Fitbit One tracker can make women more physically active.

For those who don’t know: the Fitbit One is a recently launched health and wellbeing tracker. This new device, according to the researchers, offers better outcomes than the conventional pedometers available on the market.

The above mentioned study was carried out under the leadership of Lisa Cadmus-Bertram of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Kinesiology Department. During the study, Cadmus-Bertram and her colleagues made 51 postmenopausal overweight women undergo a self-monitored activity intervention for four consecutive weeks.

The researchers wanted the participating women to achieve the goal of walking 10,000 steps every day and take part in 150 minutes of moderate to intense physical activity every week. Each of the 51 participants had to wear an accelerometer for allowing the researchers to track their movements.

While 50% of the women got a Fitbit One tracker, a product that can be purchased for $100 from the majority of the retailers, the others were given a cheaper and simpler pedometer.

When monitoring the activities of the women, researchers came to know that women using Fitbit One increased the time they spent for exercising by around an hour every week. On the other hand, women using regular pedometers didn’t experience any significant increase in the amount of time spent for exercising.

That’s not all; women using Fitbit also added around 789 steps to their weekly walking schedule. Prior to the study, these women used to complete 6,000 steps every week on average.

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Although the women representing the Fitbit group couldn’t achieve the goal of taking part in150 minutes of physical activities every week, researchers believe that the findings of the study are pretty encouraging.

According to the researchers, this test on postmenopausal women shows that Fitbit can increase physical activity pretty effectively. The study was published on June 10, in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

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The study’s lead author Cadmus-Bertram said that for helping people substantially a fitness tracker must be accurate enough. According to her, the device should possess the ability to offer frequent feedback, encourage users to achieve the set goals and finally provide recognition when the goals are attained.

Fitbit seems to have all the above mentioned qualities. However, still Cadmus-Bertram has warned that one has to remember that health trackers cannot perform exercises on someone’s behalf. It can only make the process of improving lifestyle more fun and slightly easier for its users.

About the author

Nitin Agarwal

Nitin has a background in Electrical Engineering and is passionate about the Internet of Things. He covers how connected devices like smart homes, wearables, and industrial IoT are changing our daily lives. Nitin is also a DIY enthusiast and loves to build IoT gadgets.