Page 24 - Seniorstoday November 2023 Issue

Fitness

Tracking daily

step counts

Smartphones and watches can be a useful tool for weight management –
an exercise scientist parses the science, writes Bob Buresh

Over the last decade, smartphones have obesity. Today, just over 40 years later, the
become ubiquitous not just for sending prevalence of obesity is greater than 40%
texts and staying abreast of news, but also in the adult population, and current trends
for monitoring daily activity levels. suggest that almost half of all adults in the
Among the most common, and arguably U.S. will be obese by 2030.
the most meaningful, tracking method for
daily physical activity is step counting.
Counting steps is far more than a fad: The
U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services dedicated a sizable portion of its
most recent physical activity guidelines
to documenting the relationship between
daily step counts and several chronic
diseases. Kennesaw State University, and our lab
Unfortunately, the guidelines have little has been conducting studies examining
to say about how step counts might be used relationships, among step counts and a
to aid in weight management, an outcome number of health outcomes.
of critical importance given the high rates While the evidence is clear that increasing
of overweight and obesity especially in the numbers of adults are living in a chronic
U.S. energy surplus that leads to weight gain, a
In the early 1980s, fewer than 14% of key question is – why? What has changed
adults in the U.S. were classified as having so dramatically since 1980 that could

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