It’s estimated that 85 to 90 per cent of Canadians spend “way too much time sitting,” say researchers at Western University, and using text messages to change that could improve their health. Sitting for extended periods of time has been linked health problems like diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, poor bone health and death.
Researchers sent tailor-made messages
Researchers wanted to find novel ways to try to break up the amount of time students spend seated. “The smartphone permeates in society. It’s ubiquitous,” says Henry Prapavessis, director of the Exercise and Health Psychology lab at Western University.
“And as a result we thought that because people use a smartphone every day and a function of it is SMS text messages, we thought that we could take advantage of that by sending tailor-made messages to individuals to remind them to break up long periods of sitting.”
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Text messages changed behaviour
Researchers recruited 82 students. They sent half of them text messages encouraging breaks by either standing or participating in light- or moderate-intensity physical activity. The other half received text messages unrelated to sedentary behaviour.
More study needed
What they found was that the text messaging was effective in changing behaviour and decreasing sedentary behaviour. Prapavessis says the study was small. He would like to expand it over a longer period of time and with other kinds of people to gauge how effective text messaging could be in breaking up sitting times.
There are already several apps that remind people to get up and interrupt long periods of sitting.
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