Encouraging Physical Activity with Technology Jamie Wise Marcy Vance Krista Kinnard Nutrition and Physical Activity Group (NPA) Office of Arid Lands Studies Arizona Space Grant Consortium University of Arizona April 19, 2008

Outline Jamie Wise –Assessing the Potential Role of GPS and GIS Marcy Vance –Accuracy of Commercial GPS Energy Expenditure Products Krista Kinnard –Integrating GPS and GIS in Education Programs

A special thanks to… Kay Hongu, Ph.D. (mentor) Barron Orr, Ph.D. (co-mentor) Kristin Wisneski Karalee Poschman The Nutritional Sciences Department Office of Arid Lands Studies East Social Center of Green Valley, AZ Ironwood Tree Experience

Assessing the Potential Role of GPS and GIS Jamie Wise

Obesity Statistics 2005 NIH, WHO, US Dept. of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics, US Surgeon General National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and An increase of 45%

The Age of Technology Video games, TV, computer games, the internet Sedentary activity rather than physical activity Obesity is a national epidemic Proposed Solution: Combine healthy lifestyle education with geospatial technologies Global Positioning System (GPS): location outside Geographic Information System (GIS): computer mapping Google Maps & Google Earth: web visualization & simple GIS

GPS Computers, video games, etc. Technology (Measurements) Technology (fun) Active/ outside Sedentary/ inside GPS: 1.Measures 2.Fun Why GPS? If youth love technology, can we exploit technology that: Is used outside? And that can actually help us measure PA? AND – that is FUN!

GPS and Energy GPS Satellites GPS receiver Accurate? We don’t know!! Measures Location (latitude/longitude) Commercial Fitness Units (that exploit GPS) Accurate? YES!! Measures Energy Expenditure (EE) in Calories (kcals) GPS Technology

Accuracy of Commercial Energy Expenditure Products that Exploit GPS Marcy Vance

The Next Step Design an experiment Identify a control for measuring EE: RT3 tri- accelerometer Use tools to structure PA (metronome, GPSMap60, pedometer) Develop a detailed protocol Compare RT3 data to commercial fitness units

Controls RT3 –Measures 3 dimensional movement –Reports energy expenditure every minute Garmin GPS Map60 –GPS receiver to verify location –Helped us control speed –Takes waypoints to synchronize data to GPS units and RT3. Metronome –Used to keep cadence with desired speed

Pre- and In-Field Preparation Pre-Field Preparation Prepare Units What to Bring to Field In-Field Preparation Metronome Field Unit Preparation

At the Field Procedure In the Field Start Procedure Walking/Running Speeds: 3,5,7,10,12 km/h Waypoints Record After the Experiment Immediate data download, clean analyze

Trial and Error Changes: -Time vs. Distance - Change start/stop procedure - Changed Speeds - Established a way to organize field data during the process What worked: -One person wearing all the units - Metronome to keep cadence - Marking waypoints as a control Our objective was to create a repeatable, robust experiment and eliminate (or reduce) confounding factors.

Why? Protocol significance Reproducibility Application of results New trials planned to test the protocol and complete the experiment

Integrating GPS and GIS in Education Programs Krista Kinnard

Community Involvement –Get kids involved with technology while keeping them outside and moving around. –Promote physical activity to prevent obesity –Make that activity sustained in the longer term –Set up a prevention program –Inform others with newsletters and updates. Goals

Never Participate in Obesity Prevention Intervention Attempted Intervention but Not Sustained Successful Intervention Programs have been established to educate and encourage PA and nutritious lifestyles Direct Intervention Efforts 70% 20% 10% Those at Risk of Overweight or Obesity NOT Acceptable!

Walk Across Arizona WAAZ is a 16 week program promoting daily physical activity Weekly newsletters County by County “Fun Places to Walk” public Google Map

Green Valley WAAZ: Geocaching Green Valley WAAZ wrap- up event WAAZ totals: –30 min. scavenger hunt using Garmin GPS map60 –16 adult participants –walked almost 1 mile 75% of participants reported a positive experience

Green Valley WAAZ: Geocaching Green Valley WAAZ wrap- up event WAAZ totals: –30 min. scavenger hunt using Garmin GPS map60 –16 adult participants –walked almost 1 mile 75% of participants reported a positive experience

Ironwood Tree Experience A program aimed at reconnecting youth with nature They contacted us about using GPS to help measure things in the environment (e.g., location of plants) They are interested in the connection between healthy environment and healthy lifestyles We helped them make this connection more direct We have integrated physical activity into the program through: –Use of pedometers –Use of GPS and GIS –Use of new web visualization technologies

Ironwood Tree Experience Taught the youth way to take GPS-based field measurements into the laboratory for spatial analysis Introduced Google Maps & Google Earth so they could share their results with parents and the public Our longer term objective is to integrate our research AND education programs: Measure potential of PA/EE measurements based on our research, and assessment of whether geospatial technologies encourage PA.

The Future GPS research: –Using the protocol to further study GPS units Implementation of community intervention projects like WAAZ and ITE— Get people moving!!

The Future Integrating technology into currently lifestyles in a way that encourages PA. Cell phones with GPS enabled MySpace and Facebook with “My Activities Maps” spreading across social networks

Thank you Questions?