College Students Use Garmin Watches to Make Healthier Choices
INDUSTRY: EDUCATION
LOCATION: River Falls, Wisconsin
ESTABLISHED: 1874
WEBSITE: uwrf.edu
STUDENT PARTICIPANTS: 7,800+
NUMBER OF WEARABLES: 7,800+
THE OVERVIEW
- The University of Wisconsin-River Falls is using Garmin smartwatches along with the Garmin Health API and the Motion Connected platform to help provide a picture of students’ health.
EARLY FINDINGS
- The combination of Garmin smartwatches and Motion Connected enables students to better understand the difference between busy and active moments, empowering them to incorporate physical activity into their daily lives.
With the help of Garmin, students are on the move at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.
The Wisconsin college has teamed up with Garmin Health, a leading provider of digital health solutions that leverage the data and insights of Garmin products1 and Motion Connected, an online engagement platform that pulls data from smart devices.
The goal? To help provide a picture of each student’s health and encourage them to make personalised lifestyle modifications. Since autumn 2017, each semester approximately 700 UW-River Falls students sport a vívosmart® 5 or vívosmart® 4 for a required physical education course.
The course requires students to reach 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity per week. It also analyses the physiological consequences of decisions related to the six dimensions of wellness — social, physical, mental/emotional, intellectual, career and spiritual — as well as health-related components of physical fitness.
Early participant feedback suggests that the combination of Garmin smartwatches and Motion Connected enables students to better understand the difference between busy and active moments, empowering them to incorporate physical activity into their daily lives, as evidenced by averaging 177 minutes of weekly activity in autumn 2023.
The core of this collaboration lies within the integration of the Garmin Health API, which sends Garmin watch data to the Motion Connected platform for the instructor to view. Thanks to the Garmin Health API and the rich sensor data generated by Garmin devices, UW-River Falls can contribute to the success and wellbeing of its students.
For more information, visit Garmin.com/health.
“The reliability of Garmin devices and sensor data separates Garmin as a game-changing solution for the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. More than 7,800 students have been positively influenced throughout the duration of the programme.”
–JODEE SCHABEN, HEALTH AND HUMAN PERFORMANCE ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AT UW-RIVER FALLS
1 See Garmin.com/ataccuracy
