The study's use of objective data from accelerometers, capturing all daily physical activity, was a major strength compared to previous studies relying on self-report.

“So an accelerometer is literally a device that you wear on your wrist and it is measuring the direction of movement and the physical intensity of movement. So if I move my wrist say slowly that might be light activity intensity light intensity activity. If I move it more vigorously that might be vigorous intensity. So this accelerometer device is measuring, you know, the intensity of people's movements throughout the day, the direction of that intensity because it just has this physical, you know, an accelerometer in it which just measures the direction and the intensity of physical activity. And so every 10 seconds throughout the day, it's measuring their intensity of physical activity. And then based on a certain threshold of how intense their movement is that would get bucketed into being a light intensity activity, a moderate intensity activity or a vigorous intensity activity.”

“And that was, I think, the major strength of this study. So instead of self-report which a lot of the previous studies for the guidelines did this one was objective data and yes it captured it captured what physical activity they were doing what exercise they were doing I guess so their structured workouts but also as you mentioned just everything they did throughout the day this device was measuring every single activity in 10-second bursts throughout the day every 10 seconds it measured you know what is the intensity that their activity is and”