A Wearable Activity Tracker Intervention With and Without Weekly Behavioral Support Emails to Promote Physical Activity Among Women Who Are Overweight or Obese: Randomized Controlled Trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Physical activity (PA) plays a fundamental role in combating the current obesity epidemic; however, most women who are overweight or obese are generally physically inactive. Wearable activity tracker interventions can help increase the PA levels in this population. Supplementing such interventions with behavioral support emails may further improve their effectiveness, but this remains to be confirmed. Objective This study aims to determine if adding behavioral support emails to a wearable activity tracker intervention can further increase PA levels among women who are overweight or obese in comparison to a wearable activity tracker–only intervention and a control condition. Methods Women with a BMI ≥25 kg/m2 who were not meeting the Canadian PA guidelines for aerobic and strength training were randomized into 1 of 3 groups. Group 1 received 6 weekly behavioral support emails, a wearable activity tracker, and a copy of the Canadian PA guidelines. Group 2 received a wearable activity tracker and a copy of the Canadian PA guidelines, and group 3 (control condition) received a copy of the Canadian PA guidelines. Self-reported data for walking and moderate to vigorous intensity PA were collected preintervention (week 0; prerandomization), postintervention (7 weeks postrandomization), and at follow-up (21 weeks postrandomization) and analyzed as metabolic equivalent of task minutes per week. In addition, potential mechanisms of behavior change (ie, basic psychological needs satisfaction and motivational regulations) were assessed for within- and between-group differences at all 3 time points. Data were analyzed using nonparametric statistical tests. Results A total of 49 women were recruited; data from 47 women (mean age 37.57 years, SD 11.78 years; mean BMI 31.69 kg/m2, SD 5.97 kg/m2) were available for analysis. Group 1 reported a significant increase in walking from preintervention to postintervention (χ22=7.5; P=.02) but not in moderate to vigorous intensity PA (P=.24). Group 1 also reported significant increases in perceptions of competence from preintervention to follow-up (χ22=7.6; P=.02) and relatedness from preintervention to follow-up (χ22=8.7; P=.005). Increases in perceived autonomy were observed for group 2 (χ22=7.0) and group 3 (χ22=10.6). There were no significant changes in the motivational regulations within the groups. The difference between the groups was not significant for any outcome variable. Conclusions The results suggest that adding behavioral support emails to a wearable activity tracker intervention may help to increase time spent walking and perceptions of competence and relatedness for PA among women who are overweight or obese. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03601663; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03601663
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.012 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".