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Fitness Trackers are prescribed to improve wellbeing in Suffolk
8 April 2019, 16:01 | Updated: 8 April 2019, 16:05
Active Suffolk are improving wellbeing and encouraging more socialising through fitness trackers.
The new Active Technology project is being run to encourage over 50s to be more active and avoid loneliness in Babergh and Mid Suffolk.
After being referred by a doctor, an Active Wellbeing adviser will get them into a community group, where the adviser can also monitor their progress and send them messages of encourgement and support.
The project is aiming to decrease the need for medication in medical conditions that can be treated through improving physical wellbeing.
Walking group members from Leiston are a third of their way through the 12 month project, they told Heart it helps to have support from others:
"If you've lost partners and your children are too busy you can get quite lonely. I've met people who live in the village and because of that I meet on other occasions as well, so it's made my life much better.
I can go on to the app and be encouraging, it's just nice to have that support.
It's almost a social media platform so people can applaud other people's progress, they can comment on it, it's more about the social side of it. It challenges you, if I haven't done 10,000 steps it makes me want to do it, it pushes you."
Abbeycroft Leisure Centre (ALC), Eastern Academic Health Science Network (Eastern AHSN) and Active Suffolk help provide over 50s with the fitness trackers, so that they can monitor their own progress and make positive lifestyle choices to improve their physical, social and mental wellbeing.
