The secret to keeping fit in lockdown

A national study from Deakin University, which tracked people’s activity levels across last year’s stay-at-home restrictions, found adults were two to three times more likely to get enough exercise if they used digital platforms to access fitness classes. And the effect was even greater for teenagers, particularly girls.Co-lead researcher Kate Parker, from the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, said with so much moving online, it was important to understand how people used technology and how it could be harnessed further to improve health.“People have been using various fitness apps and YouTube for a long period of time. But we didn’t really know how helpful they were in helping people to be active,” Dr Parker said.“This lockdown time period is a reset on behaviour. There was nothing else apart from going for a walk or run in the local neighbourhood, so it was a good time to capture if people are actually using these things and does it help.”The Our Life at Home study surveyed more than 2100 people, including almost 1000 teenagers, on their exercise levels in May at the start of Victoria’s lockdown.

They followed them up again at the height of stage four restrictions in September, finding 39 per cent of adults used digital platforms to keep fit. These people were more than twice as likely to meet the guidelines for cardio-based exercise and more than three times as likely to do enough muscle strengthening work, compared with non-users.The survey found 26 per cent of teenagers used apps or social media to keep fit, and they were more than twice as likely to get enough huff-and-puff exercise and more than three times as likely to do the recommended strength building activity. The findings were published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.“These results show that there is a real opportunity for … organisations to make use of these platforms for education, instruction and promotion of physical activity,” Dr Parker said.The researchers will continue to survey participants this year and next to track the ongoing effects of digital platforms on exercise. Given the difficulties in getting young women to exercise, with just 10 per cent of female adolescents meeting physical activity guidelines, the researchers are now investigating how digital platforms can be harnessed to boost the health of that demographic.