Abstract
Outdoor fitness equipment (OFE) areas have become a popular form of built environment infrastructure in public open spaces as a means to improve public health through increased physical activity. However, the benefits of using OFE are not consistent, and several OFE accidents have been reported. In this study, we videotaped how OFE users operate OFE in parks and selected four types of popular OFE (the waist twister, air walker, ski machine, and waist/back massager) for video content analysis. Furthermore, we established coding schemes and compared results with the instructions provided by OFE manufacturers. The results revealed various usage behaviors for the same OFE types. In addition, we observed that a significant portion of user behaviors did not follow manufacturers’ instructions, which might pose potential risks or actually cause injuries. Children are especially prone to act improperly. This study provides empirical evidence indicating the existence of potential safety risks due to inappropriate usage behaviors that might lead to accidents and injuries while using OFE. This study provides crucial information that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of OFE and to develop future park or open space initiatives.
Highlights
The benefits of physical activity have been well documented in many scientific studies and public health campaigns [1], several surveys conducted by governments worldwide indicated that their citizens do not meet desired physical activity levels [2]
Among the four types of outdoor fitness equipment (OFE) analyzed in this study from video recordings, the air walker (n = 195) had the highest user count, followed by the triple waist twister (n = 142), ski machine (n = 96), and waist/back massager (n = 60)
The experts found that many pieces of OFE in Taiwan are equipped with unsteady pedals or platforms and do not have adjustable resistance functions
Summary
The benefits of physical activity have been well documented in many scientific studies and public health campaigns [1], several surveys conducted by governments worldwide indicated that their citizens do not meet desired physical activity levels [2]. To solve this problem, governments have built physical exercise environments for public use. Many parks worldwide have installed outdoor fitness equipment (OFE) to attract more citizens to visit them and to engage in physical activities [6,7,8,9,10,11,12]. In Sydney, the installation of OFE increased park visits [7]; the Health
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