Kinesiology Senior Project Evaluates Efficacy of Pedometer Feedback
June 6, 2014
Exercise fads come and go, but one form of physical activity is here to stay: walking. Walking requires no special equipment or skills and almost everyone does it on a daily basis. Kinesiology student Jamie Mangan’s senior project sought to increase the physical activity level of Cal Poly staff and faculty members by having them use pedometers to track their daily step counts.
Mangan said she got the idea for her project when she learned about the 10,000 step goal.
“We talked about the 10,000 step goal in one of my classes,” she said. “Ten-thousand steps is the minimum number of steps a person needs to take to see the health benefits of exercise by walking.” These health benefits include decreased risk for obesity and cardiovascular disease.
Ten-thousand steps is about five miles for most people; the average person with a sedentary occupation walks between 4,000 and 6,000 steps per day. Mangan said that the average baseline for individuals in her study was about 6,400 steps per day.
“My goal was to determine the effectiveness of pedometer recording frequency in increasing faculty and staff daily step count,” Mangan said. She explained that participants wore pedometers and either recorded their step count four times per day or one time per day; both groups worked toward the end goal of 10,000 steps per day.
Mangan’s project was made possible by funding from STRIDE. “STRIDE provided the pedometers that I used — without STRIDE’s help I would have had to find alternate funding and would likely have been forced to make do with fewer pedometers and participants,” she said.
Mangan’s advisor, Heather Starnes, helped Mangan gain access to STRIDE funding. “A lot of students have great ideas for senior projects and with a little bit of help from STRIDE, in the form of access to research equipment and tools, those projects come to fruition,” Starnes said.
Mangan enlisted a range of Cal Poly staff from units such as Testing Services, the Robert Kennedy Library and the Health and Counseling Services, as well as faculty from a range of departments to participate in her study. “I had 28 participants complete the entire five week intervention,” she said.
Mangan found that pedometer recording frequency made a significant difference in increasing daily step count for individuals not already taking 10,000 steps per day. Individuals in the treatment group (who checked their pedometers four times per day) increased their step count by an average of more than 2,000 steps per day, which is about one mile. Individuals who checked their pedometer only once per day only increased their daily step count by about 700 steps.
Furthermore, individuals in the treatment group of the five-week study showed a significant decrease in systolic blood pressure.
“A longer study would likely have greater effects on health outcomes,” Mangan said. “This data is especially applicable to worksite wellness programs that seek to increase the physical activity of employees. Having people check their pedometers more frequently will help them to walk more.”
Starnes elaborated on the implications of Mangan’s study. “This could lead to greater work productivity and job satisfaction, improved quality of life, health care savings, and the prevention of major chronic conditions and diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. We know that self-monitoring and self-regulation is an important determinant of health behavior and what Jamie showed is just how much of an effect that self-monitoring can have,” Starnes explained.
Mangan recently presented her senior project at the International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity conference in San Diego. “Many of the attendees at her presentation inquired as to whether she was going to publish her findings in a peer-reviewed journal. It's always a good sign when other researchers and practitioners inquire about where they might find your results for future reference. I hope that Jamie will consider submitting her work to a peer-reviewed journal,” Starnes said.
Mangan is graduating with the class of 2014 and is looking forward to a career in health and wellness promotion.
“Jamie will be successful in any career path that she selects because of her willingness to take initiative and to try new experiences,” Starnes said.
