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Improving Pacific Adolescents’ Physical Activity Toward International Recommendations: Exploratory Study of a Digital Education App Coupled With Activity Trackers

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents has dramatically increased in the Pacific Island countries and territories over the last decade. Childhood overweight and obesity not only have short-term consequences but are also likely to lead to noncommunicable dise...

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Autores principales: Galy, Olivier, Yacef, Kalina, Caillaud, Corinne
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6931053/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31825319
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/14854
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author Galy, Olivier
Yacef, Kalina
Caillaud, Corinne
author_facet Galy, Olivier
Yacef, Kalina
Caillaud, Corinne
author_sort Galy, Olivier
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents has dramatically increased in the Pacific Island countries and territories over the last decade. Childhood overweight and obesity not only have short-term consequences but are also likely to lead to noncommunicable diseases in adulthood. A major factor contributing to the rising prevalence is an insufficient amount of daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). In the Pacific region, less than 50% of children and adolescents meet the international recommendations of 11,000 steps and 60 min of MVPA per day. Although studies have shown the potential of digital technologies to change behaviors, none has been proposed to guide adolescents toward achieving these recommendations. OBJECTIVE: The aims of this study were (1) to investigate whether a technology-based educational program that combines education, objective measures of physical activity (PA), and self-assessment of goal achievement would be well received by Pacific adolescents and help change their PA behaviors toward the international PA recommendations and (2) to create more insightful data analysis methods to better understand PA behavior change. METHODS: A total of 24 adolescents, aged 12 to 14 years, participated in a 4-week program comprising 8 1-hour modules designed to develop health literacy and physical skills. This self-paced user-centered program was delivered via an app and provided health-related learning content as well as goal setting and self-assessment tasks. PA performed during the 4-week program was captured by an activity tracker to support learning and help the adolescents self-assess their achievements against personal goals. The data were analyzed using a consistency rate and daily behavior clustering to reveal any PA changes, particularly regarding adherence to international recommendations. RESULTS: The consistency rate of daily steps revealed that the adolescents reached 11,000 steps per day 48% (approximately 3.4 days per week) of the time in the first week of the program, and this peaked at 59% (approximately 4.1 days per week) toward the end of the program. PA data showed an overall increase during the program, particularly in the less active adolescents, who increased their daily steps by 15% and ultimately reached 11,000 steps more frequently. The consistency of daily behavior clustering showed a 27% increase in adherence to international recommendations in the least active adolescents. CONCLUSIONS: Technology-supported educational programs that include self-monitored PA via activity trackers can be successfully delivered to adolescents in schools in remote Pacific areas. New data mining techniques enable innovative analyses of PA engagement based on the international recommendations.
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spelling pubmed-69310532020-01-06 Improving Pacific Adolescents’ Physical Activity Toward International Recommendations: Exploratory Study of a Digital Education App Coupled With Activity Trackers Galy, Olivier Yacef, Kalina Caillaud, Corinne JMIR Mhealth Uhealth Original Paper BACKGROUND: The prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents has dramatically increased in the Pacific Island countries and territories over the last decade. Childhood overweight and obesity not only have short-term consequences but are also likely to lead to noncommunicable diseases in adulthood. A major factor contributing to the rising prevalence is an insufficient amount of daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). In the Pacific region, less than 50% of children and adolescents meet the international recommendations of 11,000 steps and 60 min of MVPA per day. Although studies have shown the potential of digital technologies to change behaviors, none has been proposed to guide adolescents toward achieving these recommendations. OBJECTIVE: The aims of this study were (1) to investigate whether a technology-based educational program that combines education, objective measures of physical activity (PA), and self-assessment of goal achievement would be well received by Pacific adolescents and help change their PA behaviors toward the international PA recommendations and (2) to create more insightful data analysis methods to better understand PA behavior change. METHODS: A total of 24 adolescents, aged 12 to 14 years, participated in a 4-week program comprising 8 1-hour modules designed to develop health literacy and physical skills. This self-paced user-centered program was delivered via an app and provided health-related learning content as well as goal setting and self-assessment tasks. PA performed during the 4-week program was captured by an activity tracker to support learning and help the adolescents self-assess their achievements against personal goals. The data were analyzed using a consistency rate and daily behavior clustering to reveal any PA changes, particularly regarding adherence to international recommendations. RESULTS: The consistency rate of daily steps revealed that the adolescents reached 11,000 steps per day 48% (approximately 3.4 days per week) of the time in the first week of the program, and this peaked at 59% (approximately 4.1 days per week) toward the end of the program. PA data showed an overall increase during the program, particularly in the less active adolescents, who increased their daily steps by 15% and ultimately reached 11,000 steps more frequently. The consistency of daily behavior clustering showed a 27% increase in adherence to international recommendations in the least active adolescents. CONCLUSIONS: Technology-supported educational programs that include self-monitored PA via activity trackers can be successfully delivered to adolescents in schools in remote Pacific areas. New data mining techniques enable innovative analyses of PA engagement based on the international recommendations. JMIR Publications 2019-12-11 /pmc/articles/PMC6931053/ /pubmed/31825319 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/14854 Text en ©Olivier Galy, Kalina Yacef, Corinne Caillaud. Originally published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth (http://mhealth.jmir.org), 11.12.2019. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://mhealth.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Galy, Olivier
Yacef, Kalina
Caillaud, Corinne
Improving Pacific Adolescents’ Physical Activity Toward International Recommendations: Exploratory Study of a Digital Education App Coupled With Activity Trackers
title Improving Pacific Adolescents’ Physical Activity Toward International Recommendations: Exploratory Study of a Digital Education App Coupled With Activity Trackers
title_full Improving Pacific Adolescents’ Physical Activity Toward International Recommendations: Exploratory Study of a Digital Education App Coupled With Activity Trackers
title_fullStr Improving Pacific Adolescents’ Physical Activity Toward International Recommendations: Exploratory Study of a Digital Education App Coupled With Activity Trackers
title_full_unstemmed Improving Pacific Adolescents’ Physical Activity Toward International Recommendations: Exploratory Study of a Digital Education App Coupled With Activity Trackers
title_short Improving Pacific Adolescents’ Physical Activity Toward International Recommendations: Exploratory Study of a Digital Education App Coupled With Activity Trackers
title_sort improving pacific adolescents’ physical activity toward international recommendations: exploratory study of a digital education app coupled with activity trackers
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6931053/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31825319
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/14854
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