Mobility: Promoting Health and Physical Activity

in School Environments

Mariana L. Moraes

1 a

, Maria Luiza C. Santos

1 b

, Maria das Grac¸as P. Silva

1 c

Edyellen L. S. Oliveira

1 d

, Rossana M. C. Andrade

2 e

and Pedro Almir M. Oliveira

1,2 f

Federal Institute of Maranh

ao, Pedreiras, Brazil

Group of Computer Networks, Software Engineering, and Systems (GREat),

Federal University of Cear

a (UFC), Fortaleza, Brazil

{lopesmariana, luizacalisto, pereiramaria, eleal}@acad.ifma.edu.br,

Keywords:

Physical Activity, Health Promotion, Mobile Technology.

Abstract:

Technology, although it has brought many advances in various social spheres, has contributed to the popular-

ization of a sedentary lifestyle. The evolution of machines and the automation of daily processes have reduced

the need for daily physical activities, contributing to a serious public health problem. Given this scenario, it is

necessary to develop strategies that encourage adopting healthy practices in daily life. In this sense, this article

investigates the implementation of the ”Mobility” application in high schools, aiming to promote physical ac-

tivity among adolescents. By integrating technology with health promotion, Mobility stands out as a creative

tool to reduce cases of sedentary lifestyles and improve the quality of life of young people.

1 INTRODUCTION

Health, as one of the fundamental human rights,

is equated with other essential rights such as free-

dom, food, education, and security as established in

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),

adopted by the United Nations (UN) in 1948. Recog-

nized as one of the key pillars for social, economic,

and personal development, health is considered a cru-

cial dimension of quality of life (Organization, 1995).

According to the (Nation, 1948), quality of life

is an individual’s perception of their position in life

within the context of the culture and value systems in

which they live and concerning their goals, expecta-

tions, standards, and concerns. In this context, the

WHO subdivides quality of life into four main do-

mains: physical, social, psychological, and environ-

mental. This study focuses on the physical domain,

covering aspects related to the motor skills of high

https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8084-8808

https://orcid.org/0009-0000-5017-9270

https://orcid.org/0009-0006-8130-9721

https://orcid.org/0009-0002-6488-2957

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0186-2994

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3067-3076

school students, their ﬁtness for daily activities, and

their degree of mobility.

The Physical Activity Guide for the Brazilian Pop-

ulation, published by the Ministry of Health, states

that physical education can contribute signiﬁcantly to

students’ health and personal development. During

periods of intense study, such as in the weeks leading

up to college exams, entrance exams, or the delivery

of a course completion paper, it is common for the stu-

dent to be anxious and overloaded and, also, the prac-

tice of physical activity may not be a priority during

this period, but it should be. Proper physical exercise

improves body health, which consequently beneﬁts

brain health, increasing mental well-being and reduc-

ing symptoms of anxiety and depression (da Sa

ude,

2022).

When we think of neurocognitive aspects, such as

memory, it is through motor activities that new and

meaningful neural connections are formed. The psy-

chomotor approach already indicates that the com-

ponents of motor skills (a set of neural and muscu-

lar functions that enable voluntary or automatic body

movements) share common brain areas. This allows

students to transfer knowledge and skills acquired

through physical activity to academic tasks (Lisboa,

2022).

556

Moraes, M. L., Santos, M. L. C., Silva, M. D. G. P., Oliveira, E. L. S., Andrade, R. M. C. and Oliveira, P. A. M.

Mobility: Promoting Health and Physical Activity in School Environments.

DOI: 10.5220/0013164600003911

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 18th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2025) - Volume 2: HEALTHINF, pages 556-563

ISBN: 978-989-758-731-3; ISSN: 2184-4305

Physical education is mandatory in the primary

curriculum and optional in rare cases. Through cul-

ture and movement, in addition to its diversity of con-

tent, physical education seeks to sensitize and guide

students to reﬂect on their body mobility practices and

their impact on the environment in which they live.

Despite this, schools still need to encourage physical

exercise more, and little is said about its beneﬁts for

students’ academic lives.

This study is necessary to help students become

more physically active since good performance in

school tasks is essential to achieving their goals. To

this end, the effectiveness of the Mobility app in the

school environment is investigated to promote better

habits in academic life. This investigation is con-

ducted by performing a usability test that evaluates

the quality and functionality of the app.

2 RELATED WORKS

To survey related studies, we searched the literature

using Google Scholar for approaches similar to the

proposal presented in this article. We aimed to iden-

tify studies related to promoting physical activity and

using technologies in the health area, resulting in se-

lecting ﬁve studies for discussion. The objective is to

provide a solid foundation for this article, highlight-

ing the need for technological innovations in health

and emphasizing the relevance of applications such

as Mobility.

In the foreground, the study by (Becchi et al.,

2021) discusses the practice of physical activities dur-

ing the COVID-19 pandemic. This scenario made it

challenging to maintain healthy habits due to social

distancing and the closure of public places, limiting

opportunities for physical activity and contributing to

a sedentary lifestyle. The article highlights the need

for digital tools to keep the population active amid the

lockdown. Despite the end of the pandemic, a seden-

tary lifestyle continues to be a reality for many people,

highlighting the need to encourage the population to

adopt healthier habits.

Similarly, the article by (Verzani and

de Souza Serapi

ao, 2020) analyzes the impact

of smartphone applications on promoting physical

activity. The study highlights that these software

programs have great potential to encourage physical

activity and improve public health. Many appli-

cations incorporate gamiﬁcation elements, such as

challenges and rewards, which can motivate users to

stay active and engaged. However, it is important to

overcome limitations such as dependence on tech-

nology, variation in effectiveness between different

users, and the possibility of disengagement over time.

It is concluded that applications have the potential to

encourage exercise. However, it is important to over-

come the aforementioned limitations to maximize

their impact.

Complementing the previous view, the (Silva

et al., 2020) review states that health apps are essential

in monitoring health conditions and promoting physi-

cal activities. They facilitate communication between

the healthcare professional and the patient and allow

health monitoring. However, challenges can be over-

come, such as prolonged user adoption, the need for

scientiﬁc validation, and ensuring data privacy. The

study shows that this software offers many beneﬁts;

however, it is essential to emphasize the referential

challenges. Mobile health has promising results and

can help various public policies external to the pro-

motion of well-being and health.

Mobile health (mHealth) has been gaining in-

creasing attention in the health ﬁeld. The study by

(Oliveira et al., 2018) explores the opportunities mo-

bile health offers in promoting physical activity and

improving health outcomes for the population. The

paper discusses how apps can monitor and encourage

physical exercise, supporting active lifestyles. As in

previous dissertations, it is found that there are obsta-

cles, such as accessibility, that need to be addressed

for the implementation of mobile health applications.

Contributing to the previous perspective, the text

by (Organization et al., 2007) is part of the WHO in-

formation series on school health and highlights the

importance of physical activities in the school con-

text as a fundamental component for promoting health

and well-being. The study states that implementing

school physical activity programs improves students’

physical, mental, and social development, improving

their academic performance and general well-being.

The document suggests that schools implement pro-

grams and policies that add physical activities to the

curriculum, creating an environment that encourages

healthy lifestyles.

Analyzing the approaches discussed, Mobility

shares the goal of integrating users through digital

tools. However, the app stands out among other ap-

plications for creating the practice of physical activi-

ties in a fun and interactive way, using tools such as

challenges and rankings combined with health moni-

toring, such as BMI calculation. In addition, it seeks

to overcome the challenges identiﬁed in the literature,

such as user disengagement and digital inclusion.

Mobility: Promoting Health and Physical Activity in School Environments

557

Figure 1: Mobility Prototype.

3 MOBILITY

The Mobility App aims to encourage mobility chal-

lenges that promote students’ physical health. The

project suggests mobility-related challenges inte-

grated with the infrastructure of “omitted for blind re-

view”. Initially, it was called MovPed and was being

developed on the App Inventor platform

, a web soft-

ware from the American university Massachusetts In-

stitute of Technology (MIT) for creating Android ap-

plications. Subsequently, the application was moved

to the Kodular tool

, inspired by App Inventor but

with more functionalities and components. The pro-

totype of the project’s screens was built in FigJam

1, an online whiteboard tool launched by the company

Figma

The application logo 2 features an image of a

cheetah, symbolizing mobility, as it is the fastest land

animal in the world. It also includes the slogan: ’You

in motion.’ The color scheme uses orange and its

complementary blue on the screens because the or-

ange hue symbolizes energy, vitality, movement, and

creativity. All interface elements of the app 3 were

sourced from the Flaticon website

, which provides

icons and stickers for download.

https://appinventor.mit.edu/

https://kodular.io/

https://ﬁgma.com/ﬁgjam/

https://ﬁgma.com/

https://ﬂaticon.com/

Figure 2: Mobility app logo.

Figure 3: Icons from Flaticon.

The Mobility app includes the following screens:

Ranking 6, BMI Calculator 7, and Information.

• Login/Registration: The registration screen con-

tains ﬁelds to enter the full name, email, pass-

word, password conﬁrmation, age, and gender.

All this data is sent and stored in Firebase 8 once

HEALTHINF 2025 - 18th International Conference on Health Informatics

558

the user ﬁlls out the ﬁelds and clicks the ”Create

account” button. After this step, when clicking

”Login,” the login screen will appear with ﬁelds to

enter the username and the previously registered

password in the database.

Figure 4: Splash screen, registration and login.

• Menu: This screen opens after the user has

logged in and clicked the ”Log In” button. It has

four buttons: Challenges, Ranking, BMI Calcu-

lator, and Information. It also displays the user

proﬁle in the top section of the screen. Users are

redirected to the respective screen when they click

any button.

• Proﬁle: This screen displays the user’s name, age,

and gender, retrieved from Firebase 8. The user

can edit these details by clicking the ”Edit data”

button. After making changes, the user clicks

”Save data,” and the ﬁelds will reﬂect the updated

information saved in the database.

• Challenges: This screen lists the proposed chal-

lenges in the app. Two challenges are listed: Max-

imum steps in 5 (ﬁve) minutes and Run from the

entrance to the announcement TV. The ﬁrst chal-

lenge tracks the maximum number of steps the

user can achieve in ﬁve minutes. On this screen

is a step counter sensor that records the number

of steps taken and the distance covered in meters,

along with a timer that stops when ﬁve minutes

have passed, ending the challenge and saving the

result in the list below.

The second challenge is to run from the entrance

to the campus announcement TV as soon as pos-

sible. This screen shows the user’s current coordi-

nates and the distance in meters from the start and

end points of the challenge. Due to GPS accuracy,

there is a tolerance of up to 6 meters from the ref-

erence points to start or ﬁnish the challenge. After

completing the challenge by pressing the ”Finish

challenge” button, the time taken to complete the

path is recorded. The results of the challenges are

listed in descending and ascending order, respec-

tively.

Figure 5: Mobility Screens: Challenges.

• Ranking: The following screen displays all the

recorded results for each challenge, including the

name, score achieved, and the date the user com-

pleted the challenge. This data is retrieved from

Firebase, which is neatly saved for the sorting list.

Figure 6: Mobility Screens: Ranking.

• BMI Calculator: This screen presents ﬁelds to

enter height (cm) and weight (kg). When the

”Calculate” button is clicked, the user’s body

mass index and a classiﬁcation table for health sta-

tus reference will appear. In the ”Clear” option,

the user can input new values and recalculate the

BMI.

Figure 7: Mobility Screen: Homescreen and BMI.

• Information: This screen contains a description

of the developers of the Mobility app and the pur-

pose of the application.

The Firebase Realtime Database

is used 8, which

is a cloud-hosted database that stores and syncs data

https://ﬁrebase.google.com/

Mobility: Promoting Health and Physical Activity in School Environments

559

among its users in real-time. The app settings are

stored on the platform (containing the latitudes and

longitudes of the two points in the running challenge

and the tolerance in meters, which can be modiﬁed),

the proﬁles (with the user’s name, age, and gender),

the records of the completion of each challenge (con-

taining the achieved value, the name of the person

who completed it, and the date), and the users (which

include the registered name, email, and password).

Figure 8: Mobility Database.

4 PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT

It is important to note that the school did not ofﬁ-

cially implement Mobility. However, before the main

study was implemented, a preliminary evaluation was

conducted to test and identify possible challenges in

using the developed application. For this phase, two

exploratory questionnaires were applied through the

Google Forms platform: the pre-experiment question-

naire, which aimed to analyze the students’ physi-

cal activity habits, and the post-experiment question-

naire, which aimed to evaluate the app.

4.1 Methodology

To conduct the preliminary assessment, question-

naires created by the Mobility development team and

made available through the Google Forms platform

were used. Before the questionnaire was adminis-

tered, the students had not tested the application, al-

lowing a concrete analysis of the student’s ﬁrst im-

pression of Mobility. No exclusion criteria were es-

tablished for participants in the preliminary assess-

ment.

The ﬁrst form, a pre-experimental form, consisted

of 11 questions and took an average of ﬁve minutes

to complete. It sought to analyze participants’ aca-

demic data, including age, course, shift attended, year

in which they were enrolled, and study modality (inte-

grated, subsequent, or undergraduate). After collect-

ing this initial information, questions related to the

participants’ health were presented, such as ”Do you

have any chronic diseases or health problems?” and

”How physically active do you consider yourself?”,

in order to assess the participants’ general health sta-

tus and level of physical activity.

After completing the ﬁrst form, the evaluation it-

self began. Participants tested all the software’s fea-

tures, including the proposed challenges. During this

phase, the tool’s usability, ease of access, and clarity

of the application’s instructions were observed, and

the effectiveness of the challenges in promoting ad-

herence to physical activities was evaluated. At the

end of the test, students were invited to answer a sec-

ond questionnaire: the post-experiment.

The Likert scale was used for the post-experiment

form, and an evaluation scale was used to measure

the participants’ opinions, motivations, and other as-

pects. It uses a series of response options ranging

from an extremely positive opinion to a highly neg-

ative one, sometimes including moderate or neutral

options. The questionnaire evaluated several aspects

of the application and included questions such as:

• ”How easy was it to use Mobility?”, with answers

ranging from 1 (very difﬁcult) to 5 (very easy) 10;

• ”How interesting/appropriate did you ﬁnd the

challenges?”, with options ranging from 1 (not

very interesting) to 5 (very interesting) 11;

• ”What would you rate the application?” with an-

swers ranging from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) 12.

In addition to these questions, the form contained

a section dedicated to suggestions, allowing partici-

pants to provide feedback and proposals for improv-

ing the application,. The post-experiment form took,

on average,, seven minutes to complete. Overall, con-

sidering the time spent on the questionnaires and the

evaluation itself, the application protocol lasted about

30 minutes.

4.2 Data Collected

The data collected in the pre-experiment and post-

experiment are shown in the following graphs 9, 10,

11, 12.

5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Mobility aims to encourage students to practice phys-

ical exercise in a fun and accessible way within the

school environment. To ensure the app’s efﬁcient use

at school, an evaluation period was conducted to en-

sure its effectiveness.

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560

Figure 9: Percentage distribution of students about the practice of physical exercises.

Figure 10: Level of ease of using Mobility.

Before introducing the application, a question-

naire was conducted using the Google Forms plat-

form to analyze aspects related to the students’ phys-

ical lives. The questionnaire was structured to col-

lect information on the frequency of physical activity

practices, mobility difﬁculties, and possible barriers

to performing exercises.

Based on the results obtained 9, it was ob-

served that 90.3% of the participants did not present

mobility-related problems. Furthermore, the data in-

dicate that 25.8% of the students do not perform

any physical activity, while 41.9% reported practic-

ing physical activities occasionally. On the other

hand, 25.8% reported practicing physical activities

frequently, and only 3.2% of the students reported

practicing physical activities regularly.

Therefore, the data obtained on physical activ-

ity practice indicate a worrying situation. The num-

ber of students who do not perform physical activ-

ity (25.8%) is high. This inactivity indicates that the

school has not encouraged or made students aware of

the beneﬁts of regular physical activity.

In addition, the majority of the students (41.9%)

reported practicing physical activities only occasion-

ally, which may be insufﬁcient to guarantee their ben-

eﬁts. This occasional practice indicates that the stu-

dents understand the importance of physical exercise

but are not encouraged to do it.

Among the 31 participants in the experiment, only

3.2% practice physical activities regularly, indicating

that only a small portion of those being evaluated un-

derstand the real need to maintain a healthy routine.

5.1 Post-Assessment Form

After the preliminary assessment, another form was

proposed for the Mobility evaluation. This analysis

included the quality of the challenges and scores from

1 to 5 for application and ease of use.

The responses obtained from this questionnaire in-

dicated that the application is easy to use 10, with an

intuitive interface that makes navigation more acces-

sible for users. In addition, the feedback on the qual-

ity of the challenges was mostly favorable, indicat-

ing that the proposed activities are appropriate for the

app’s purpose 11.

On the other hand, some participants highlighted

the need to add other functions to the software. These

functionalities include creating more challenges and

an area reserved for meal tips and nutritional guide-

lines for better physical conditioning when practicing

mobility exercises. In addition, it was suggested that

the app integrate the Physical Education discipline so

that the challenges proposed in Mobility can also be

used as practical classes for the subject.

In general, the rating given to the application was

excellent, as shown in the graph 12. Considering the

suggestions presented by the participants, it is possi-

ble to improve the tool further, adapting it to different

lifestyles.

Mobility: Promoting Health and Physical Activity in School Environments

561

Figure 11: Level of suitability for Mobility challenges.

Figure 12: Mobility app general rating.

5.2 Study Limitations

One of the limitations of the study was the small num-

ber of people who participated in the test period, in

addition to the fact that it was conducted in a spe-

ciﬁc school environment with a limited age range. In

addition, several obstacles make it challenging to ap-

ply this software in schools, such as digital inclusion,

since not all students have the same level of knowl-

edge about using software, in addition to the suitabil-

ity of the environment for carrying out the challenges

proposed by Mobility. These factors restrict the gen-

eralization of the results, making it difﬁcult to com-

pare with other institutions with different structural

conditions and socioeconomic contexts.

Another difﬁculty encountered is the lack of in-

terest in practicing physical activities. This bar-

rier may be related to individual issues (motivation,

self-esteem), social issues (inﬂuence of friends and

family), and environmental issues (access to suitable

spaces) (Ceschini and Junior, 2007). In the context

of the school in question, students feel overwhelmed

by the choice of a technical course integrated into

high school, which results in great academic de-

mands. Therefore, they naturally prefer more passive

lifestyles, which, in turn, generate a view of irrele-

vance regarding the application. For this reason, ini-

tially, the participants did not seem very interested in

participating in the preliminary evaluation.

During the application testing in the preliminary

evaluation phase, the software presented GPS-related

difﬁculties, which initially did not work correctly on

all cell phones. However, despite this obstacle, Mo-

bility proved to be successful in the testing phase,

proving to be easy to apply in practice.

5.3 Future Research

For future research, it is suggested that more compre-

hensive tests be conducted to obtain a broader view of

physical activity patterns among students. The effects

of programs that promote physical health in schools

should be observed, relating them to students’ aca-

demic performance and the associated psychological

implications. In addition to promoting training on us-

ing this type of software in schools, strategies to over-

come the aforementioned challenges must be created.

6 FINAL REMARKS

In summary, the study was based on the 17 UN

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), emphasiz-

ing health and well-being. Thus, considering the

global scenario regarding the increase in the number

of young people facing problems related to a seden-

tary lifestyle and diseases resulting from this lifestyle,

it is essential to adopt effective measures to solve this

issue, leading to the creation of the Mobility applica-

tion.

Although the software has not been implemented

in schools, the results observed in the questionnaires

carried out indicate promising potential. However, al-

though the study presents excellent results, it is clear

HEALTHINF 2025 - 18th International Conference on Health Informatics

562

that there are several barriers related to implementing

this software in schools, such as digital inclusion and

the appropriate environment for carrying out the chal-

lenges, among others. In addition, a comprehensive

evaluation of the application discussed in this article

is still necessary.

The present study was based on the performance

of a usability test to assess the impact of Mobility in

schools. It is worth mentioning that before the prelim-

inary evaluation was carried out, all students involved

agreed to the consent terms present in the question-

naires.

To demonstrate the researchers’ commitment to

ensuring a viable project, it is emphasized that the cur-

rent study is under analysis by the Ethics Committee

and, if successful, will enter the process for more in-

depth research at the institute itself. Therefore, among

the main ﬁndings of this work is the need to integrate

technologies into educational networks to promote a

healthier environment that encourages the practice of

physical activities.

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