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| Source: www.thebrookeeper.com |
In a study on the effects of body image on perceived usefulness of fitness apps, it was found that college students with an average age of 23 were more likely to believe fitness apps to be useful if they themselves had lower self-esteem. This low self-esteem could be attributed to their physical appearance and/or their perception of their physical ability.
This may seem counter-intuitive at first given that it seems fitness apps' most frequent users would be people who tend to workout on a regular basis, and are therefore fairly fit. However, the study found that when a student is lacking confidence in their appearance or physical ability, she will more than likely believe the app has more potential to help her than if she were already confident in her abilities. In that case, the app cannot do much more for the student—she is already happy with where she is.
In this study by Jaehee Cho and Erin Lee, who both have PhDs from South Korean universities, 294 students were given an online survey that evaluated their self image and whether or not they thought that several different fitness apps would be of any use to them on a 5-point scale. It was also noted that in South Korea, where the study took place, 73% of Korean adults owned a smartphone at the time of the study.
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| Source: www.mobihealthnews.com |
Samantha Kelly claims in her article on Mashable that fitness/health apps are being newly downloaded 87% faster than any other type of smartphone app. She also notes that more women tend to use health apps than men.
Another study performed by the University of Agder strove to discover what effect physical activity has on the physical self-perception of 15-year-olds. A total of 1839 students from 12 different schools in Norway participated in the study. A slight flaw in the study was that some of the males' physical appearances and abilities actually improved along the course of the study, which caused an obvious increase in self-perception. There was no apparent difference in the females, however.
The purpose of the study was to find a way to improve the self esteem of adolescents. Young teenagers are typically at a peak of self-consciousness since they are going through so many changes emotionally, physically, and socially. It is crucial to find ways to help them through this stage of their life, and if the answer is physical activity, then that may be part of the cause of the recent spike in installations of fitness apps, considering teenagers tend to find any excuse to put their smartphone to good use.
Physical self-esteem incorporates both perceived physical appearance and perceived athletic ability. Not only are these perceptions important for adolescents' overall self-esteem, but they are crucial for their psychological well-being as well. Tommy Haugen, Yngvar Ommundsen, and Stephen Seiler claim in this study that "[e]xercise and training are proposed to reduce appearance dissatisfaction and enhance physical self-perception."
A separate study "found that cardiovascular endurance was positively correlated to athletic competence but not to physical appearance in a small sample of early adolescent girls." It is also generally assumed that strength and aerobic training are the two most important types of exercises to promote better self-esteem and self-image.
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| Source: www.greatist.com |
Each participant of the study had to perform five physical fitness tests to get a preliminary indication of the physical ability of each participant. As predicted, BMI was the most effective at determining the perceived physical appearance levels of both males and females. If a student's BMI were high, then the student would typically report having a low perceived physical appearance, and vice-versa. The results also suggested that "physical activity can develop
physical competencies and skills, which in turn are associated with increase in
self-esteem and confidence."
Fitness and health apps are meant to encourage adolescents and adults of all ages to be more physically active and to eat in a more healthy manner. Since exercising more often and eating better correlate with a healthier over-all mindset and improved self-image, then maybe fitness and health apps are the answer to many issues we have with adolescents in the modern day. Low self-esteem and depression can be diminished simply by downloading a smartphone app and putting it to use.
Right off the bat I see an explanatory headline, which is great! I was able to learn something new after reading the headline. I did not see any sub-heads, which is okay, but I think your post could have benefitted if you used them. Sub-heads make the piece easier to read and breaks up the large blocks of gray text allowing the story to be more inviting for the reader.
ReplyDeleteI liked the use of links throughout your post because it gives the reader more context. I would've liked to see links used, as well, for the different studies that you mentioned in your story. This would just be helpful for the reader to refer to those studies and it would increase their trust in your work.
I thought you did a nice job of formatting the piece. I liked the way you kept your paragraphs short and succinct, and I liked the way you weaved your multimedia pieces (images and bar chart) within the text. The images went along well with the general topic of the post and the graph added more context for the reader.
It seemed like you interpreted the studies well and did a good job of explaining them. I thought you had good content, but I personally thought it was a little much on how many different studies you brought in. At times it was hard to keep track of and follow all the findings from each study. I think it would’ve been better to focus on one study and bring in maybe one other for more context to eliminate overwhelming the reader.
On the whole, I thought it was a very well written analysis. It is clear that you put in a lot of time and effort into this assignment with all the research you did. Nice job!
Right off the bat I see an explanatory headline, which is great! I was able to learn something new after reading the headline. I did not see any sub-heads, which is okay, but I think your post could have benefitted if you used them. Sub-heads make the piece easier to read and breaks up the large blocks of gray text allowing the story to be more inviting for the reader.
ReplyDeleteI liked the use of links throughout your post because it gives the reader more context. I would've liked to see links used, as well, for the different studies that you mentioned in your story. This would just be helpful for the reader to refer to those studies and it would increase their trust in your work.
I thought you did a nice job of formatting the piece. I liked the way you kept your paragraphs short and succinct, and I liked the way you weaved your multimedia pieces (images and bar chart) within the text. The images went along well with the general topic of the post and the graph added more context for the reader.
It seemed like you interpreted the studies well and did a good job of explaining them. I thought you had good content, but I personally thought it was a little much on how many different studies you brought in. At times it was hard to keep track of and follow all the findings from each study. I think it would’ve been better to focus on one study and bring in maybe one other for more context to eliminate overwhelming the reader.
On the whole, I thought it was a very well written analysis. It is clear that you put in a lot of time and effort into this assignment with all the research you did. Nice job!
Hey Alicia,
ReplyDeleteGreat use of an explanatory headline to begin your analysis. I found your writing to be very easy to understand with great flow from paragraph to paragraph. You definitely demonstrated an understanding of the studies you read. One thing I really took away from reading your article was that these fitness apps seemed to be helping users become more physically active and in long –term, increased the users self satisfaction with their physical appearance.
A question that I thought about after was whether any of the studies showed a decrease in the amount of usage or usefulness of the fitness apps amongst users who once had low perceptions of their physical attractiveness? Did the users who found benefits from the apps eventually grow out of the apps once they saw in increase in physical attractiveness?
I only raise this question because I am one of those people who was once unhappy with their physical attractiveness, (was once a frail kid), and began using fitness apps to help me train and become stronger, and I eventually grew out of the apps because I no longer felt I needed to log my progression and workload to see my results. I felt that once I could see the results on myself, the apps, which were only my guide, were no longer necessary.
I really like that you were able to pull a bunch of different studies together all to support your one main claim. I know Nick commented saying that the number of different studies you included became confusing for him, but I think they were all very helpful to back up your main point.
The use of multiple images, placed very well throughout your blog, including the chart, were all very good in supporting your analysis. As Nick also mentioned, you did a great job keeping your paragraphs to a good length, where they are not too intimidating for the reader but also not too short and choppy.
Overall, I felt you did a great job on this piece. Your voice really came through my computer screen and I look forward to reading more of your work.
The study you cover is quite interesting. I was surprised to find that the study indicates how people with low self-esteem are more likely to find the fitness apps useful than people with high self-esteem. It makes sense that a person who is unhappy with their health would seek a fitness app to help them achieve their goal, but I feel that the study is defective because it excludes those who are already physically fit but want to use the fitness apps to maintain their health or even improve their level of fitness.
ReplyDeleteI thought you did a decent job of the assignment, making it fairly organized and having a strong beginning and end. The first three paragraphs were clear and concise, and after reading the introduction, I was able to understand the main idea of the article. However, the following information was a bit incoherent and disjointed, making it difficult to follow. For example, you jump from Cho and Lee’s study to Kelly’s article without explaining to the readers the results from the South Korean study. In your description of the University of Agder study, you never explained how they did the testing and how they got the results. Your news story would be easier to follow if you had better transitions between paragraphs and explained what the connections and differences between the studies were. I like the last two paragraphs, though, because they are easy to understand and therefore allowed the reader to gather coherent information.
Another way you could have made your article more appealing is by shortening the title and not having as many long, important words in it. Although the title is explanatory, it was too wordy and made me have to think about it.
What stuck out about your article was the good spacing and graphics. The paragraphs were short, making the article intelligible, and the graphics were eye-pleasing and appropriate.
Overall, although the article can improve in certain areas on reasoning and organization, you did a good job with consistency and analyzing the studies.