Wearable technology in the Health and Fitness Classroom?

By: Jeff Chicki

I once wondered if wearable technology that tracks fitness and nutrition promotes healthier lifestyles. Research suggests that using this technology does promote healthier living, but I am always careful about research findings due to my science background. I wondered if there was more to the story. Is it possible that people that use fitness tracking technology already lead healthier lifestyles, and use the technology to retrieve data that validates their lifestyle, and furthermore, is it possible that those who lead less healthy lifestyles, do not use the technology because they don't want to know the data that would collected by the device?

I had been pondering this for a while, when I was fortunately gifted a FitBit Charge. Excited about my new wearable technology, I immediately set it up, downloaded the app, and began to connect virtually with friends that have FitBits. Within a few days I was a member of a work-group, and invited to join their weekly step challenge.

This morning, I stopped at the gas station and picked up a drink and a packaged Berry Danish. As I got into my car, I checked the number of calories I had burned the last couple days, and out of curiousity, I also checked the number of calories that were in the two items I had just purchased. Needless to say, my danish still sits in my car because I could not bring myself to eat a small item containing 500 calories. Because I have access to the data, I have begun to think about what I am taking in, in terms of calories, and burning over the course of multiple days. Also, the challenge involving numbers of steps is friendly competition, but I find myself taking stairs instead of elevators, and thinking more about how exercise effects my daily numbers. You see, there are billions of dollars spent every year on weight loss programs, but it is as simple as this, from a scientific standpoint, if calories burned is higher than calories taken in, you will loose weight in a healthy manner over time.

As an educational technologist, I began to wonder how this technology could be used for learning. Could you imagine a classroom set of FitBits for physical education or health classes. Many schools are in a situation where every student has their own device (ie: tablet, ipad, smartphones, laptop, ect). If those students could participate in classroom FitBit challenges, track data, change their habits to see how it effects the data, and analyze how those changes effect their physical fitness and overall health, what an amazing learning tool for students. Furthermore, this is a great way to support skills that are necessary across the curriculum. Skills like analyzing data, interpreting graphs, making predictions, and researching solutions would all be a vital part of this implementation.

I predict that there would not be any opposition by PE/Health teachers to this idea, but they will say, "We can't afford to buy the technology." I challenge those curriculum administrators, physical fitness and health teachers to find a way to fund a program like this. Grants are waiting for innovators in education to use the money for something that has never been done before. As more schools go 1:1 with devices, PE and health programs are struggling to find ways to integrate the technology into their classrooms. This proposed wearable technology plan can expand the health and physical fitness classroom beyond the walls of the school, increase overall health outcomes, build awareness, gamify the classroom, and utilize the technology that is often in the way of building healthy living.

To return to my original curiosity, I am truly a believer in the wearable technology's ability to increase healthy habits. Time will only tell if the impact will be long-term, but the awareness that my FitBit has brought to my life will be difficult to forget or ignore as long as I am wearing the technology.

Possible Grant Sources:
http://www.sparkpe.org/grants/grantfunding-resources/
https://www.wholekidsfoundation.org/index.php/health-kids-innovation
https://phpartners.org/grants.html
https://www.healthykidschallenge.com/evidence-based-solutions-help-grant-applications-implementation

References:
http://berkeleysciencereview.com/fit-fitbit/
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1756-0500/7/952
http://www.tipsonhealthyliving.com/diet-and-fitness/should-you-get-a-fitbit-the-surprising-gains-of-this-popular-device