Emotional response to exercise

It is commonly said that "Adding exercise to your daily routine can positively affect your life." For example, exercise can reduce the risk of numerous health issues such as certain forms of cancer, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, diabetes, and obesity. However, in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 24.2% of adults reached the guidelines for both muscle-strengthening activities and aerobic activities. If exercise is so important, why do over¾ of adults not meet the physical activity guidelines? According to Harvard Medical School, exercise is easy to avoid. To help determine a way to get people to exercise, we conducted a study that used a program called FaceReader to analyze an individual's facial expressions either while exercising or viewing exercise. By doing this, we can tell the emotion that they are feeling which can help medical professionals prescribe exercise specific to the individual's taste which would result in more positive long-term results. Our objective of this study is to more accurately determine how exercise can be used as a prescription to ensure that patients stick to their treatment.

For the video portion of this study, participants watched a two-minute video with short clips of several exercises that increased in intensity as the video played, and, using FaceReader, a program that examines the micro-expressions in someone's face, we analyzed their facial expressions to see their varying emotions during the different exercises. For the exercise portion of this study, participants were given the option to choose from the treadmill, the exercise bike, or, if they had a device that could track their heart rate, the rowing machine. A camera was set up on the machine and FaceReader was used to analyze the emotional response to exercise. Exercise was conducted in two-minute intervals with 2 minutes of a warm-up, low-intensity, medium-intensity, high-intensity, and a cool down.

The data collected suggested that a majority of the participants had a less negative response to the moderate-intensity workouts. During the video portion of the study, we found that 42.86% of women's peak interest of a certain intensity matched the intensity level of their preferred exercises, this was only true for 25% of men. From this we concluded that women's facial expressions matched their preferred form of exercise 18% more than men's. The workout portion of this study allowed us to analyze facial expressions while conducting exercises chosen by participants, according to the data collected we were able to better prescribe exercise regimens that are both physiologically and mentally beneficial for participants.