20th September 2023 marks National Fitness Day, a UK awareness day to encourage people of all ages, and abilities to experience the power of fitness through different physical activities. This year’s theme is ‘Your Health is for Life’.

Wearable technology such as smartwatches and fitness trackers have risen in popularity, especially amongst those looking to keep fit and manage their physical health. Wearable technology, powered by mobile connectivity, can offer its users an abundance of benefits, in addition to basic fitness stats such as transmitting health readings to health professionals, doctors and nurses, even when they are many miles away.  

These functions can prevent health issues from developing while supporting the recovery process after illnesses. They can also offer health professionals the option to monitor patient health markers almost in real time. This can enable faster treatment or alterations in medications bespoke to that person.  

Many people already take advantage of mobile-connected wearables to track and record their heart rate, blood sugar level and temperature (and many other health readings).

This was the case when a 73-year-old retiree from Connecticut, US was alerted to a potentially fatal health problem when her fitness wearable displayed a resting heart rate of 140 beats per minute. Alerted by this, she called the ambulance and was able to be treated. In this instance, wearable technology helped inform her decision as to the seriousness of her condition.

Wearables continue to rise in popularity as new and innovative updates are introduced to the market. New smart watches issued recently can use artificial intelligence to enable users to make voice requests on the move and log health data such as their weight, menstrual cycles, or medications.

Our Director of Policy and Communications, Gareth Elliott, has shared some footage from his daily run to help build awareness of how wearables and mobile connectivity can assist us in our everyday fitness and health tracking.  

You can find out more about wearable technology and read use cases of how mobile connectivity is enabling us to live better connected through our interactive landscape here.  

If you are interested in finding out how dependent you are on connected devices, we encourage you to take our How Connected Are You? challenge. This short 2-min survey highlights what type of mobile user you are - you may be surprised by your results. Try the challenge here.

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