New app keeps tabs on your daily movement
Swiss scientists have developed a health app that lets users track, share and compare their daily physical activity.
The app, released on Monday, was created by researchers from the Swiss federal technology institute ETH Zurich in collaboration with Swiss public television, SRF.
Called “SRF bewegt” (“SRF gets moving”), it is now available for downloadExternal link to iOS and Android mobile devices. It was developed by Ulf Blanke and Sebastien Feese, co-founders of ETH Zurich spin-off company Antavi.
The official campaign, scheduled for June 8-12, is an initiative by the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) in partnership with the federal health, sport and energy authorities. SBC is the parent company of swissinfo.ch.
The goal is to encourage people to become more aware of their daily movements and to find ways to be more active on a regular basis. The app will aid this effort by measuring individuals’ activity using GPS localisation and step recognition.
In addition to self-evaluation, the app encourages a little friendly competition: users can compare their daily activity levels with others throughout Switzerland.
Anonymous user data, which will be collected in real-time throughout the June campaign week, will be collected and used by ETH Zurich researchers in studies related to behaviour, exercise and health.
Active Swiss Kids
On Monday, the sports ministry and the Federal Statistical Office also released “Swiss Sport 2014”, a report on the exercise habits and attitudes of Swiss children and adolescents.
The report, which studied over 3,000 individuals between the ages of 10-19, showed that Swiss youth are doing a lot of sports both at school and during extracurricular activities.
Children and adolescents between the ages of 10-14 did an average of 6.6 hours of sport per week, while teenagers between 15-19 did about 5.6 hours.
These figures are slightly lower than those of the previous study, conducted in 2008, which estimated 7.3 hours and 6.1 hours per week of exercise for the respective age groups. However, attitudes toward sport were positive overall, with study respondents saying that fun, fitness and camaraderie were their primary reasons for participating.
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