| Summary: | Significant proportion of sustainable health results from a healthy lifestyle, which
includes regular physical activity. Lack of physical activity will result in health
related issues such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases and obesity (Foo et al., 2013).
Furthermore, physical activity during childhood and adolescence has the potential to
affect health and physical activity in adulthood. With the increasing amount of
interest regarding physical activity among children, there is a growing need to
develop methods that can increase physical activity. The adverse health effects such
as psychological factors (weight criticism and embarrassment), resulting from lesser
physical activity may indirectly cause sedentary behavior, which can be
characterized by inactive amount of activity (Hislop et al., 2012), too much sitting
and insufficient physical exercises. Hence, methods have to be explored concurrently
to find solutions for reducing sedentary behavior.
Methods of assessing the level of physical activities and sedentary behaviors such as
accelerometers will be reviewed and further analyzed to find areas of improvement.
Accelerometers were found to be useful in detecting specific activity under
controlled conditions. On top of that, it has the potential to measure the intensity of
different activities accurately. However, it may not be capable of detecting specific
activity in uncontrolled conditions.
With respect to the existing platforms that are able to increase physical activity and
decrease sedentary behavior could be outdoor playgrounds and Nintendo Wii Fit.
Both platforms currently provide the infrastructure for physical activities. However,the motivation and enjoyment level to utilize the platforms were insufficient. In order
to better understand the customer requirements of how a platform should aid in
increasing physical fitness and discover the factors that affect the design of a
platform, Quality Function Deployment method (QFD) will be applied. The QFD
conducted indicated that more work needs to be done on both existing platforms. By
introducing incentive based system, the motivation level to utilize both platforms
will increase. Moreover, it will also increase customers’ motivation to improve their
physical fitness. In addition, by implementing QFD, there will be a better idea of
how customers perceive a functional platform that entices them to employ it and
increase physical activity. Functions such as ability to detect specific activity will
play a key role in determining whether the exercise games included in both
platforms, as future work will be successful. Detecting the specific type of activity
provides a form of feedback recognition to user that the exercise was conducted
properly. This will give users more intrinsic motivation to use the platform further.
Thereafter, there is a need to explore more sensors that have such capability in the
future.
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