Close X
Friday, November 29, 2024
ADVT 
Tech

App that can make obese people agile

Darpan News Desk IANS, 27 Jun, 2014 12:26 PM
    If you are used to a sedentary lifestyle, this app can help you become a little active.
     
    This smartphone-based app can produce short-term reductions in sedentary behaviour that may be effective in improving health.
     
    More sedentary time, regardless of physical activity levels, is associated with greater risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease and mortality.
     
    "Almost everyone knows that physical activity is important. But it's not widely recognised that someone who runs five miles in the evening but spends the rest of the day sitting at a desk can be putting their health at risk," said co-researcher Dale Bond from The Miriam Hospital, Rhode Island, in the US.
     
    "That smartphone you use so often throughout the day could now actually help to improve your health," he added.
     
    Bond and Graham Thomas from the same institute worked with their colleagues to develop a smartphone-based intervention to reduce the amount of time obese individuals sit or recline while awake.
     
    The smartphone app, "B-Mobile," was tested in a study of primarily middle-aged women who were obese, although the intervention can be applied to those who are not obese.
     
    The app automatically monitored the time participants spent being sedentary, and after an extended period with no activity, prompted participants via a tone paired with motivational messages to get up and walk around for a few minutes.
     
    Participants received feedback providing encouragement for taking a break.
     
    Researchers tested three different approaches to see which was best at reducing the total amount of sedentary time.
     
    Even though all three were successful, researchers found it is better to take shorter breaks more often for better health.
     
    "Prompting frequent, short activity breaks may be the most effective way to decrease excessive sedentary time and increase physical activity in individuals who are overweight or obese," Bond said.
     
    The findings appeared in the journal PLOS ONE.

    MORE Tech ARTICLES

    What? Plant-powered FM radio is here

    What? Plant-powered FM radio is here
    Named Moss FM, the radio is designed by University of Cambridge biochemist Paolo Bombelli and London-based product designer Fabienne Felder.

    What? Plant-powered FM radio is here

    Incredible! Earth goes red for better health!

    Incredible! Earth goes red for better health!
    Taken by NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft, it shows fertile areas from South America 

    Incredible! Earth goes red for better health!

    Here's an iPhone app that paints your photos into masterpieces

    Here's an iPhone app that paints your photos into masterpieces
    The app now simulates the spreading and bleeding of the pigment onto the canvas - with dedicated properties for the virtual paper, the pigment, the brushes, the water and so on

    Here's an iPhone app that paints your photos into masterpieces

    3D-printed replica for a safe liver transplant created

    3D-printed replica for a safe liver transplant created
    The 3D-printed liver replicas, made of transparent material threaded with coloured arteries and veins, could help surgeons prevent complications while performing liver transplants or removing tumours, a path-breaking research shows.

    3D-printed replica for a safe liver transplant created

    First Look: World's first winemaker machine for your kitchen!

    First Look: World's first winemaker machine for your kitchen!
    Three cheers for wine lovers out there. Here comes a new machine that can turn water, grape concentrate, yeast and a finishing powder into wine in your kitchen in flat three days.

    First Look: World's first winemaker machine for your kitchen!

    Who is smarter, man or woman? It's just a brain, stupid!

    Who is smarter, man or woman? It's just a brain, stupid!
    The big debate about who is smarter, man or woman, has now been laid to rest. There is nothing like a boy's or a girl's brain, and no scientific evidence to prove that they are wired differently, according to an expert.

    Who is smarter, man or woman? It's just a brain, stupid!