Comparison of Accuracy Among Pedometers from Five Japanese Manufacturers

So Osawa,Hisaaki Tabuchi,Kenichi Nemoto,Shuhei Tokimasa,Shotaro Misaki,Masao Okuhara,Koji Terasawa

doi:10.2174/1875399x01306010056

Abstract

The reliability of commercially available pedometers is not known in detail. Therefore, the present study examines the accuracy and reliability of the FS500 (Acos), HJ301 (Omron), EX700 (Yamax), FB727 (Tanita) and TW600 (Citizen) pedometers to count steps and measure energy expenditure at various walking speeds. Twenty individuals (age, 32.5 ± 15.3 years; body mass index, 22.0 ± 1.6 kg/m2) walked at three speeds for 6 min. Step-counts and energy expenditure determined by each pedometer were compared with actual values. All five pedometers accurately measured steps at all speeds, but tended to underestimate expended calories to within 50% of the actual amount of energy expenditure. The correlation coefficients (R) between actual energy expenditure and pedometer values were between 0.74 and 0.87. Thus, feedback about energy expenditure is somewhat inaccurate. In contrast, step counts are very accurate, and thus pedometers are useful tools with which to indicate daily exercise levels.

Highlights

Health promotion has become a global effort since the Ottawa WHO Charter of 1989 [1] and based on this charter, the “Kenko Nippon 21” program formulated in 2000 aimed to reduce mortality rates among late-middle-aged individuals, prolong healthy lives, improve quality of life and promote regional health [2]
Fig. (1) shows the ratios (%) of pedometer values based on the actual number of steps at each walking speed and Table 2 shows the statistical results of the actual steps as follows: pedometers while walking at 100 (P100): AC, 100.9% (P < 0.05); OM, 100.9% (P < 0.01); YAMX, 101.8%; TNT, 100.5%; CTZ, 101.8% (P < 0.001); P120: AC, 100.7%; OM, 100.0%; YAMX, 100.5%; TNT, 99.5%; CTZ, 100.9% (P < 0.01); P140, AC, 99.6%; OM, 99.5%; YAMX, 99.6%; TNT, 97.2% (P < 0.05); CTZ, 99.6%
Fig. (1) shows that the mean values of all five pedometers varied within ±2% at all speeds, except for that manufactured by TNT, which was 2.8% for steps measured at P140 (105 m/min)

Summary

Introduction

Health promotion has become a global effort since the Ottawa WHO Charter of 1989 [1] and based on this charter, the “Kenko Nippon 21” program formulated in 2000 aimed to reduce mortality rates among late-middle-aged individuals, prolong healthy lives, improve quality of life and promote regional health [2]. Kenko Nippon 21 states that a decrease in physical activity is a risk factor for obesity and lifestyle diseases, and for chronic disease or infirmity among elderly individuals. Physical activity can be determined as the number of steps taken per day. The number of actual steps significantly decreased to 7,243 and 6,431 for men and women, respectively. The numbers of steps taken daily by men and women aged over 70 years in 1997 were 5,436 and 4,604, respectively, and targets were set at 6,700 and 5,900, respectively. These had significantly decreased to 4,707 and 3,917 respectively, by 2010

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion