The Efficacy of a Competition Intervention to Promote Walking in Low-Active Adults: A Single Blind Randomized Control Trial
Physical inactivity might increase the risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), particularly among individuals who are unable to reach the minimum standard recommended for good health. Therefore, the objective of this study was to examine the efficacy of a competition intervention to promote walking in adults who were classified as low active. A single-blind randomised control trial was adopted as the study design. Participants were randomly assigned into one of two groups (control and competition group), where each group consisted of 16 participants. All participants were required to try to achieve 10,000 steps per day during the whole study period (2 weeks). For the competition group only, the participants played in the ‘Steps Tournament’ and received a league table everyday during the second phase of the study (1 week). A validated pedometer was used to measure the number of steps. The results demonstrated that the participants within the competition condition showed a greater number of non-adjusted and adjusted steps compared to the participants in control condition. The findings supported the previous evidence that competition intervention is effective for increasing the physical activity in the low-active populations. For future study, specific criteria of participants need to be considered, especially age and gender. Besides, longer study period and adding health measurements would also beneficial.
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