To fight against a sedentary lifestyle, strategies can be put in place, relying on the use of the smartphone. Notifications get people moving.
Sedentary lifestyle is a silent killer. Thousands of deaths are caused by cancer each year, and being sedentary is often associated with the development of the disease.
Based on this observation, American researchers, funded by the American Cancer Society, have developed an effective strategy to encourage individuals to move. Since a large majority of people in developed countries benefit from a cell phone, they offer targeted interventions through this channel.
25 more minutes
Their study, published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, presents the results of an experiment carried out on 238 adults. Almost 69% of them were women, and more than half were black or Latino people.
The participants first had to answer a series of questionnaires about their health, their physical activity, and the time spent in a sitting position during the day.
All equipped with a smartphone and an accelerometer, these participants were then followed over a period of seven days. Divided into two groups, some received alert messages on their phones when they stopped moving or sat down for a long time, while others received no notification.
Result: those who had benefited from the targeted intervention, by receiving messages on their phone and information on the negative effects of a sedentary lifestyle, moved on average from 1.9% to 2.9% more than the others. That’s about 25 minutes of extra time, spent walking or standing, every day.
The researchers therefore believe that the generalization of mobile phones in the population presents a real opportunity to avoid a sedentary lifestyle and its harmful effects.
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