Impact of a social media exercise service on individuals and employees
Santtila, M., Grönqvist, K., Räisänen, J., & Kyröläinen, H. (2016). Impact of a social media exercise service on individuals and employees. Biomedical Human Kinetics, 8(1), 65-71. https://doi.org/10.1515/bhk-2016-0010
Published in
Biomedical Human KineticsDate
2016Copyright
© the Authors, 2016. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) Licence.
Study aim: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the impact of a social media exercise platform (HeiaHeia, Helsinki,
Finland) on the level of physical activity, physical fitness, wellbeing and body weight of the service users.
Material and methods: The subject group consisted of 2862 individuals who voluntarily participated in a web survey. Their
age, gender, body mass index, physical fitness level and activity information were self-reported.
Results: Most of the service users (78.1%) exercised more than three times a week. About 75% of the users reported that they
were in good or excellent physical fitness, while about 50% were overweight. More than half (64.6%) of the service users
reported that they had perceived an increase in their level of physical activity; and 46.4% of them reported that they had perceived
an advance in their physical fitness after using the social media service. In addition, 54.0% of the users perceived an
increase in their wellbeing. Every fifth (21.3%) user reported a decreased body weight after using the service. Those users with
lower levels of physical fitness, lower physical activity and who were overweight were more likely to report that the use of the
present service was beneficial. In total, about 75% of the service users reported at least one benefit after using the service.
Conclusion: The present study demonstrated that the use of the social media exercise service can lead to an enhanced perceived
level of physical activity, fitness and wellbeing. It also impacts positively on the users’ body weight. Thus, the present social
media service can be recommended for use, especially for overweight, unfit and sedentary customers.
...


Publisher
de Gruyter Open; University of Physical EducationISSN Search the Publication Forum
2080-2234Keywords
Publication in research information system
https://converis.jyu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/26083725
Metadata
Show full item recordCollections
- Liikuntatieteiden tiedekunta [2095]
License
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as © the Authors, 2016. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) Licence.
Related items
Showing items with similar title or keywords.
-
The role of physical activity and exercise in obesity and weight management: Time for critical appraisal
Wiklund, Petri (Shanghai University of Sport, 2016)The prevalence of overweight and obesity has increased dramatically during last 3 decades with devastating consequences to public health. Recommended strategies to reduce obesity have focused on healthier diet and physical ... -
Personal branding or employee advocacy : expert's use of social networking site
Makkonen, Pekka; Schutskoff, Sanna (Decision Sciences Institute, 2017)This paper deals with social media in building experts’ professional images. In the theoretical part, online communities are discussed in the light of the paper’s topic. The study relies on technological adoption models, ... -
Network-based indices of individual and collective advising impacts in mathematics
Semenov, Alexander; Veremyev, Alexander; Nikolaev, Alexander; Pasiliao, Eduardo L.; Boginski, Vladimir (SpringerOpen, 2020)Advising and mentoring Ph.D. students is an increasingly important aspect of the academic profession. We define and interpret a family of metrics (collectively referred to as “a-indices”) that can potentially be applied ... -
Chronic diseases and objectively monitored physical activity profile among aged individuals : a cross-sectional twin cohort study
Kujala, Urho; Hautasaari, Pekka; Vähä-Ypyä, Henri; Waller, Katja; Lindgren, Noora; Iso-Markku, Paula; Heikkilä, Kauko; Rinne, Juha; Kaprio, Jaakko; Sievänen, Harri (Taylor & Francis, 2019)Introduction: High physical activity (PA) at old age indicates good functional capacity enabling independent living. We investigated how different disease conditions are associated with measured PA indicators in old women ... -
Individual scaling of accelerometry to preferred walking speed in the assessment of physical activity in older adults
Karavirta, Laura; Rantalainen, Timo; Skantz, Heidi; Lisko, Inna; Portegijs, Erja; Rantanen, Taina (Oxford University Press; Gerontological Society of America, 2020)Background Walking forms a large portion of physical activity (PA) of older adults. We assessed free-living PA using acceleration corresponding to preferred walking speed as a relative cut-point, and studied how it relates ...