Wearable Technology Reduces Prolonged Bouts of Sedentary Behavior

Wearable fitness devices are becoming increasingly common with goals of tracking and improving health-related behaviors. These devices have been primarily used to increase physical activity; less is known about their potential for reducing sedentary behaviors. The objective of this study is to pilot the efficacy of using wearable technology to reduce sedentary time in daily life. The secondary purpose was to examine changes in mood and physical activity across the intervention. Thirty healthy young adults (20.1 ± 1.5 yr old) were randomly assigned to receive real-time sedentary feedback (SF) from a wearable device or to be in a minimal education control (MEC) condition. Sedentary and active behaviors were assessed before and after a 5-wk intervention and at a 4-wk follow-up, and mood was assessed at baseline and follow-up. Repeated-measures ANOVA was used to examine changes in sedentary behavior and mood over the intervention. Participants receiving SF significantly decreased minutes of sedentary time accumulated in longer bouts (>30 min) by −68.4 ± 102.1 min·d−1 (P = 0.021), and this decrease was maintained at follow-up (−80.9 ± 95.9 min·d−1, P = 0.006). There were no significant changes in sedentary time for MEC (P > 0.05). For mood, there was a significant group–time interaction (P = 0.05) characterized by improvements for SF and declines for MEC from baseline to follow-up. In conclusion, increasing awareness of sedentary behavior via real-time feedback from a wearable device appears to be an effective tool for influencing sedentary behavior. Use of wearable technology, such as the idle alerts included in several commercially available fitness trackers, may provide a highly translatable intervention for targeting sedentary time and improving mood in the general population.