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Do you use a fitness tracker? Millions of Americans do, in order to track their sleep, eating, and exercise habits. Now, MyFitnessPal and MapMyFitness have used this data to determine which states are the most active!
So which states come in first? California, Colorado, and Washington came in as the top three most active states, where South Carolina, Delaware, and North Dakota are the least active. In fact, the west coast was overwhelmingly more active than the east coast. A representative from MyFitnessPal said that seven out of the top ten most active states were western states!
The study is a unique effort by representatives of MyFitnessPal and MapMyFitness to pull and analyze data from about 90 million users of fitness trackers. Most users were between the ages of 25 and 44, and the data was about 65 percent women and 40 percent men.
The study also discovered the most common activities in each state, with Texas being the top running state and California, Oregon, and Washington being the top walking states.
But this doesn't necessarily mean that these most active states are active enough. A previous study published in the Wall Street Journal showed that even in California, the average amount of exercise is 87 minutes per week. That may sound like a lot, but it's only a little over half of the CDC recommended 150 minutes per week.
Apps like the two used in the study track your activity without you having to report it, which makes it a much more reliable source of data than if people were to report their activities themselves. Fitness trackers can help you stick to your exercise plan, and increase your awareness of how much activity you’re really doing. When you record data yourself, you're much more likely to under- or overestimate your activity level. But with a fitness tracker, the data is much more concrete, and you can really see where you need to improve.
