Investing in college students: the role of the fitness tracker.

Fitness trackers are becoming a popular way to encourage physical activity and impact health behaviors. Although many college students may own and use fitness trackers, they remain a high-risk group in terms of rates of obesity and lack of physical activity. In this study, college students were provided with fitness trackers to self-monitor step count.

Reliability of accelerometry-based activity monitors: a generalizability study.

Introduction: Numerous studies have examined the validity of accelerometry-based activity monitors but few studies have systematically studied the reliability of different accelerometer units for assessing a standardized bout of physical activity. Improving understanding of error in these devices is an important research objective because they are increasingly being used in large surveillance studies and intervention trials that require the use of multiple units over time.

Methods: Four samples of college-aged participants were recruited to collect reliability data on four different accelerometer types (CSA/MTI, Biotrainer Pro, Tritrac-R3D, and Actical).