People are more in control of our health than we ever have been before. Unfortunately, we are not doing a great job with this control. The majority of diseases killing us and causing disability in 2015 are what we call ‘diseases of inactivity’. Examples include diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, and obesity.
For the most part, these diseases can be prevented and managed with physical activity. Essentially we need to get off our bottoms and move, even just a little bit more. Sedentary behavior is killing us –- literally.
Some simple, meaningful analysis of our wearables data may be just the thing to make us more engaged and active.
We have likely all heard about the risks of sedentary behavior, and the implications for our health. We have also all heard that we should become more active. The Canadian and US Governments have taken this to heart and produced Physical Activity Guidelines. These guidelines tell us that in order to obtain health benefits, the average adult should all aim to get 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week.
This is all well and good, but a one-size-fits-all approach to physical activity recommendations is not ideal for a number of reasons. While public health initiatives may be effective on a large-scale, the nature of scale also means that the nuances and personal characteristics that make us individuals are not accounted for. For example, what if I have osteoarthritis in my knees and am unable to do moderate intensity activity? What if 150 minutes is way below what I am currently doing… how much more should I do? How do I put this 150 minutes goal into context in terms of my other health goals of preventing disease, managing symptoms, becoming happier, and sleeping better?
Technology may provide us with some of the means to answer these questions about physical activity. In particular, the recent boom of wearable fitness monitors has pushed the science of exercise ahead in many ways, creating significant opportunities for enterprises, device manufacturers and app makers, and even personal injury law.
However, while wearable fitness monitors have helped us become more in tune with our physical activity, many questions remain. How specifically is my amount of activity related to my risk for these diseases of inactivity? What amount of exercise, at what intensity, will help me meet my individual goals? Collecting physical activity information is useful, but without context and a deep understanding of the relationship between activity and disease, this data can only take us so far toward the goal of becoming healthier.
We at Vivametrica answer these questions by harnessing the power of technology, combined with advanced predictive analytics. As experts in exercise physiology, rehabilitation medicine, and lifestyle change, we provide the necessary context, insight, and interpretation of data. Our methods can turn data from your wearable device into meaningful and actionable tools for better health-related decision-making. We provide people with the ability to make life-changing decisions about their health, based both on their own data, and our clinical expertise.
Specifically, we provide solutions that quantify physical activity and provide individualized risk assessments for diseases of inactivity, including diabetes, heart disease, lung disease and obesity. We are able to provide these personalized risk assessments based on physical activity, body type, age, gender, and even job category.
We even offer bench-marking tools so that people and groups can compare themselves to other people and groups, in terms of activity, sleep, and risk for diseases of inactivity. Most exciting are our tools that allow individuals to experiment with combinations of change in lifestyle factors (activity, weight, waist size) to determine individual risks, and to set appropriate personal goals. Most surprisingly, this tool demonstrates how seemingly reasonable and minor changes in physical activity have huge impacts on health.
More than ever, the ability to be healthy and happy is in our control. With the advancement of technology and our predictive analytics, we can now quantify how our behavior impacts our health, and set goals that are personalized and meaningful.
Our new tools allow you to see just how many times you need to get up from the couch to reduce your risk for disease, and luckily it may be fewer than you think.