From a physical system to a pervasive solution to increase people physical activity: Is it possible?

In the last few decades our lifestyle has deeply changed thanks to the advances in science and engineering: public transportation, escalators, elevators etc., have deeply reduced the physical activity that people usually make during the day. This, combined with an incorrect diet, has increased the number of overweighted people and people with cardiac problems. In this paper we present our preliminary study which shows the feasibility of a pervasive system to incentivize people to prefer the usage of stairs instead of escalators or elevators, transforming this strain into a funny moment.