Aplicativo mobile para incentivo à prática de atividades físicas

Abstract

The sedentary lifestyle has been considered the century's great evil and physical activity considered the direct ally to pharmacological treatment, to prevent and fight against obesity. There is a lot of data to confirm this and a lot of initiatives motivating people to practice physical exercise. In addition to traditional physical activities, there are plenty of outdoors exercises, such as team sports, walking, running, and cycling. Despite the number and diversity of physical activities offered in most cities, exercising still is not the choice to all the people who should or could do it. Computer applications, especially those for mobile devices like smartphones, smartwatches, and smart bands, have been allies in performing physical activities and helping to create habits to do this kind of activity. Those apps can be used to challenge personal goals achievements, like walking a certain number of miles. Considering the usage of technologies to help on physical activity practice, this essay reports the development of an Android mobile app that records data from walks and runs done by its users. Data will be collected during the course, aiming the user to measure his body energy expenditure, and having access to meaningful information that can help him on calories control, and can be relevant for his health, like the motivation to exercise. The app has games mechanics to encourage walks and runs being done, giving experience points after each finished course, and doubling it if the activity is done by two users, simultaneously. Both devices connect and share data of the activities during it, through the Firebase Realtime Database, on the cloud.