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A Novel Smartphone Accelerometer Application for Low-Intensity Activity and Energy Expenditure Estimations in Overweight and Obese Adults

  • Mobile & Wireless Health
  • Published:
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Abstract

Physical inactivity and sedentary behaviors are on the rise worldwide and contribute to the current overweight and obesity scourge. The loss of healthy life style benchmarks and the lack of the need to move make it necessary to provide feedback about physical and sedentary activities in order to promote active ways of life. The aim of this study was to develop a specific function adapted to overweight and obese people to identify four physical activity (PA) categories and to estimate the associated total energy expenditure (TEE). This function used accelerometry data collected from a smartphone to evaluate activity intensity and length, and TEE. The performance of the proposed function was estimated according to two references (Armband® and FitmatePro®) under controlled conditions (CC) for a 1.5-h scenario, and to the Armband® device in free-living conditions (FLC) over a 12-h monitoring period. The experiments were carried out with overweight and obese volunteers: 13 in CC and 27 in FLC. The evaluation differences in time spent in each category were lower than 7% in CC and 6% in FLC, in comparison to the Armband® and FitmatePro® references. The TEE mean gap in absolute value between the function and the two references was 9.3% and 11.5% in CC, and 8.5% according to Armband® in FLC.

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the volunteers for their participation in this study and to Gail Wagman for correcting the English.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université Clermont Auvergne, INRA, UNH, Unité de Nutrition Humaine, 63000, Clermont-Ferrand, France

    Sylvie Rousset, Romain Guidoux, Ludivine Paris, Martine Duclos & Yves Boirie

  2. CHU Clermont Ferrand, Service Nutrition Clinique, 63003, Clermont Ferrand, France

    Nicolas Farigon, Magalie Miolanne, Clément Lahaye & Yves Boirie

  3. CHU Clermont Ferrand, Service Médecine du Sport et des Explorations Fonctionnelles, 63003, Clermont Ferrand, France

    Martine Duclos

  4. Almerys, 46 rue du Ressort, 63967, Clermont-Ferrand Cedex 9, France

    Damien Saboul

  5. Laboratoire Interuniversitaire de Biologie de la Motricité (LIBM EA 7424), Université de Lyon, Lyon, France

    Damien Saboul

Authors
  1. Sylvie Rousset
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  2. Romain Guidoux
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  3. Ludivine Paris
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  4. Nicolas Farigon
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  5. Magalie Miolanne
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  6. Clément Lahaye
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  7. Martine Duclos
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  8. Yves Boirie
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  9. Damien Saboul
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sylvie Rousset.

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Funding

This study was funded by almerys (grant: research collaboration n° 101,923–581).

Conflict of Interest

INRA has received a research grant from almerys. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Mobile & Wireless Health

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Rousset, S., Guidoux, R., Paris, L. et al. A Novel Smartphone Accelerometer Application for Low-Intensity Activity and Energy Expenditure Estimations in Overweight and Obese Adults. J Med Syst 41, 117 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-017-0763-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-017-0763-y

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