Abstract
Thailand’s first national steps challenge has been implemented in 2020 with the goal to raise the level of physical activity nationwide by monitoring achievements through a smartphone application. This study examined the daily step counts of participants in the first national steps challenge. Six data points from 186,653 valid participants were retrieved and analyzed in five periods using Poisson regression. The mean daily steps peaked at 3196 in Period 1, and steadily dropped to 1205 in Period 5. The daily steps per period were analyzed using the participants’ characteristics, such as the type of participant, sex, age, body mass index, and area of residence. The overall mean daily steps of the participants meant physical activity was far below the recommended level and tended to drop in later periods. The general population achieved significantly higher mean daily steps than public health officers or village health volunteers (24.0% by multivariate analysis). Participants who were female, younger (<45 years), obese (body mass index > 30), and living in rural areas had fewer mean daily steps (13.8%, 44.3%, 12.7%, and 14.7% by multivariate analysis, respectively), with statistical significance. In the future, the national steps challenge should be continuously implemented by counting all steps throughout a day, using more strategies to draw attention and raise motivation, advocating for more participants, as well as reporting the whole day step counts instead of distance.
Highlights
The World Health Organization (WHO) describes physical activity as any bodily movements produced by skeletal muscles that requires energy expenditure [1]
Non-obese participants accounted for 63.0% of all participants and over 72.3% of the participants lived in rural areas
Statistical significance was found in all characteristics when comparing between public health officers, village health volunteers (VHVs), and the general population by Chi-square and Student’s t-test with a p < 0.001
Summary
The World Health Organization (WHO) describes physical activity as any bodily movements produced by skeletal muscles that requires energy expenditure [1]. Physical inactivity is the fourth leading risk factor for premature death from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) [2]. There is evidence showing that regular physical activity is associated with reduced risk of heart disease, stroke, breast and colon cancer, and diabetes, as well as improved mental health and quality of life [3,4,5]. Increasing physical activity could prevent at least 3.2 million NCD-related mortalities per year, globally [2]. In 2010, 23% of adults (aged 18 or above) worldwide did not meet the global recommended. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 8433; doi:10.3390/ijerph17228433 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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