Physical exercise promotes long-term benefits that are key to avoiding health risk factors associated with sedentary lifestyles. Therefore, efforts aimed at improving physical activity are important, especially in the university population, whose levels of exercise often decrease drastically.
A new scientific study published in the Health Informatics Journal by the UIB’s Physical Activity and Sport Sciences research group (GICAFE), in which members of the Investigation, Development, Education and Language (I+DEL) group have collaborated, has tested a novel intervention to encourage physical exercise in university students through the use of a smartphone application (http://vidahora.com/es/). Around 100 UIB students took part in the study, half of whom used the app to promote a healthier lifestyle during the nine-week intervention. The rest of the students went about their normal lives. Several indicators of physical fitness and body composition were measured before and after the intervention. The results showed that the intervention improved the fitness of the group using the app, both in physical measures (jumping, running…) and self-reported measures (questionnaires). However, it seems that the time of the intervention was not long enough for these changes to become effective in the body composition of the participants. Therefore, it seems that the intervention was beneficial and that, with some more time of application, this type of programmes could be very positive for the health of university students.