The digital walk is meant to raise awareness around the grave health condition.

Precautions to steer clear of hospitalisation during the pandemic along with the access to fitness app and info online, has triggered a rise in awareness about personal health, which may end up protecting people against other serious ailments like diabetes or even cancer in the longer run. Platforms that guide people for effective workouts and also chalk out diet plans for a healthy life, are accompanied by gadgets that can collect data on vitals, before relaying it to doctors for facilitating remote checkups and other telemedicine services.

Fitness bands and smart watches are being equipped with tech that can monitor oxygen levels, while AI skilled for predictive analysis is being introduced for spotting early signs of diabetes, along with loss of vision due to it, in order to facilitate timely intervention by medical practitioners. In another small yet significant step towards enhancing wellbeing of people via digital solutions, an online personal health platform called STEPPI is encouraging Emiratis to participate in a charity walk for diabetes awareness, in the virtual space.

Those who won't be able to participate physically in the annual Beat Diabetes walk being organised at Dubai's Zabeel Park this week, get to join others remotely for the symbolic gesture, by registering on STEPPI's smartphone app. People can walk in through the virtual doorstep from any part of the world, and help achieve the initiative's target of clocking 50 million steps.

STEPPI's app will continuously collect data, and update the number of steps on a large screen in real time, after which it'll also reward people for participation in the walk to push back diabetes. The initiative that was started more than a decade back, has so far managed to bring 120,000 people on board, from the gulf region alone.

Over the past year, people have been turning to platforms which provide online access to professional trainers, and to create personalised routines based on individual targets as well as preferences.