Using activity trackers that monitor our physical activity does not increase exercise levels enough to benefit health, even with the incentive of a financial reward, a new study has found.
Cash incentives helped increase activity levels at 6 months, but not enough to benefit health, and 90 per cent of participants stopped using the devices once incentives stopped, researchers said.
"Over the course of the year-long study, volunteers who wore the activity trackers recorded no change in their step count but moderately increased their amount of aerobic activity by an average of 16 minutes per week," said Eric Finkelstein from Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore.
"However, we found no evidence that the device promoted weight loss or improved blood pressure or cardiorespiratory fitness, either with or without financial incentives," said Finkelstein.
"While there was some progress early on, once the incentives were stopped, volunteers did worse than if the incentives had never been offered, and most stopped wearing the trackers," he said.
More than half of adults in developed countries do not achieve recommended levels of physical activity.
Despite the popularity of activity trackers as a tool for motivating and monitoring activity levels, little research exists on whether they can help people lead healthier lives, or if financial incentives could encourage people to wear them for longer and achieve higher fitness levels.
One in ten US adults owns an activity tracker but research suggests that about a third of people abandon them within 6 months of purchase.
This trial of economic incentives to promote physical activity (TRIPPA) was designed to assess the extent to which an activity tracker with and without cash or charitable incentives could increase physical activity and improve health outcomes among 800 employees (aged 21 to 65 years) recruited from 13 organisations in Singapore.
The researchers also measured the amount of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) minutes per week (aerobic steps) as well as participants' weight, blood pressure, cardiorespiratory fitness, and self-reported quality of life at the start of the study and 6 and 12 months later.
During the first 6 months of the study, only participants who recieved cash incentive group recorded increases in physical activity compared to the start of the study, on average performing an additional 13 min of MVPA per week and increasing their number of daily steps by 570 (average daily step count 11,010 during the first 6 months).
However, after 12 months - 6 months after the incentives stopped - they recorded a substantial reduction in physical activity, logging levels similar to the start of the study.
About 40 per cent of participants stopped using the activity tracker in the first 6 months and just 10 per cent were still wearing the tracker at 12 months.
The published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology.
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