Fitbits, other devices help those on the hustings

Halfway through the current federal election campaign, Liberal volunteer AJ Sivma decided to invest in a Fitbit.

Canvassing door-to-door was keeping him on his feet for hours a day, so he figured he’d start recording the amount of energy he was expending using the fitness-tracking device.

So far, the most steps he’s taken in a day was 18,000 during a five-hour canvas. The general goal for most people using a fitness-tracker is 10,000.

“I’ll keep using it after the election,” he tells Yahoo Canada News. “But I know my numbers won’t be as strong then as they are now. My steps will definitely go down after the election.”

It seems Sivma is one of many on the election trail, from volunteers to candidates, who are using fitness trackers and fitness apps as a push to keep active and keep track of the ground they’ve covered during the whirlwind 78-day campaign.

Conservative candidate Michelle Rempel has taken to Twitter to express her enthusiasm for the device, even suggesting she used it to the point of deterioration.

Ann Ball, a campaign adviser to NDP candidate Andrew Cash, uses a Misfit, which also tracks the amount and quality of sleep she gets. The 61-year-old got it to track her steps since she has high blood pressure. After losing it earlier this year, she invested in another one.

“It changed the way I approached the campaign,” she says. “I used to take the subway to the office, now I walk there and back. It just makes you more conscious of fitness, moving and walking and the importance of that.”

It’s unclear if any of the leaders use a fitness-tracking device and no one responded to a request about their fitness regiment on the campaign trail. In the United States, former Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker was vocal about his use of a Fitbit.

One expert says that while it’s a positive thing that campaigners are jumping on the fitness trend and setting goals, it may not be enough to truly maintain good health.

Dr. Mark Gorelick is a director of product science innovation at Mio Global, which produces heart rate training devices. He explains that while there’s a goal with fitness trackers — the 10,000 steps — the paradigm was built from a recommendation by American Sports Medicine to accumulate 30 minutes of exercise a day, at 40 to 60 per cent of your heart rate. That recommendation was transposed into a steps count.

“What a lot of people don’t know is that 10,000 steps are meant to be 10,000 deliberate steps — steps with some form of intensity,” he says. “They’re meant to be of brisk pace.”

But for some people on the campaign, having a number is enough. Simone Hodgson, a foot canvasser with the NDP, who uses a pedometer app on her phone, says she likes to see how much ground she’s covered in a day — the most she’s done is 17,000 steps, which her app translated into 13 kilometres.

“It’s good to see trends over time,” she says. “I use it more out of curiosity. I do pay attention to it, but it’s not the most important thing for me. But the days I’ve walked a lot, I’ll look at it and it makes me feel virtuous.”