Visualizing exercise hidden in everyday activity

Obesity in the United States has reached epidemic proportions and inactivity is a key factor in this health problem. One difficulty in promoting an active lifestyle is the idea that getting enough "exercise" means jogging, going to the gym, or riding an exercise bike for half and hour every day. While these activities are helpful, they can be daunting for an inactive person and difficult to plan into a busy schedule. Alternatively, many regular activities such as using stairs or walking to work can also provide healthy exercise. To bring attention to the exercise present in everyday activities, I created visualizations of full-time measurements of heart rate. These visualizations were designed to improve a person's sense of control over physical fitness. They show how everyday activities can accumulate into significant amounts of exercise. I conducted a pilot test of this device on a small number of subjects. These tests indicate that feedback of all-day heart rate measurements may lead to changes in beliefs about exercise.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. Program In Media Arts and Sciences.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2002

Author dc:creator

• Hirzel, Timothy David, 1977-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Brian K. Smith.

• Architecture. Program In Media Arts and Sciences.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/61545

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/61545