Wearable technology is one of the hottest trends around. According to one survey, 41% of active Americans own one or more wearable fitness devices. No longer are fitness buffs relegated to wearing a high-tech device on their wrist. Now, you can wear one on your knee or finger too. These devices record every step you take and every calorie you burn. You don’t have to depend on a relic like a pedometer to track your steps, sophisticated wearables that cost much more can do the job. It’s an exciting time to be alive and active – but do these devices really help us sit less?
Do Fitness Trackers and Wearable Technology Make People More Active?
No doubt, wearable fitness trackers can make you more accountable and give you feedback on how active you are. Many people falsely believe they move around more than they really do. That’s true of people who do structured workouts as well as those who don’t, and with so much evidence that sitting too long increases the risk for health problems, anything that increases awareness of how active a person is, the better.
The truth is doing a structured workout doesn’t give you license to sit for the rest of the day. When you sit for long periods of time, a host of changes take place, including a drop in insulin sensitivity. These changes place you at risk for metabolic problems, and, accordingly to some studies, a greater risk for mortality. People who sit for longer than 6 hours a day are most at risk.
Can wearing a wearable help you sit less? Some wearables are designed to alert you when you’ve been sitting for more than a certain period of time. That’s certainly a benefit since it’s easy to lose track of how many minutes you’ve been glued to a chair.
Research shows people DO take more steps when they feel like they’re being tracked. The phenomenon of changing your behavior when you’re being observed or tracked is called the Hawthorne effect by sociologists. It applies to fitness trackers too. Fitness trackers change our movement patterns. Heck, research even shows less sophisticated devices like pedometers motivate people to take more steps. That’s a good thing!
They Don’t Work Unless You Wear Them
The key to getting the benefits of wearable technology is to actually strap it on. Unfortunately, when a research firm surveyed more than 6,000 individuals who purchased wearable technology, they found more than a third of participants stopped using the item within 6 months. They don’t work if you don’t use them. The problem with wearable technology may be that people don’t stick with it long term. Just as the thrill of working out wears off after a few weeks or months, for many people, so does wearing an activity tracking device. Just like people abandon gym memberships, they can also jettison their wearable devices.
Other Problems with Wearable Technology
If you’re concerned that the wearable technology you’re wearing isn’t entirely accurate, you’re probably right. When it comes to measuring the steps you take or the number of calories you burned, these devices still aren’t sophisticated enough to take into account all variables and come up with an accurate assessment. Wearables use the data you enter to calculate your basal metabolic rate and the calculated value can be off by up to several hundred calories a day. If you were to wear a few trackers at once, you probably would get slightly different readings from each one.
Plus, most wearable technology doesn’t accurately track activities that don’t involve taking steps, like walking or running, although devices like that are on the way. So, the results you’re seeing are an estimate. What they’re more accurate at is telling you how your activity level varies on a day to day basis. If you took 7,500 steps on Wednesday and 11,000 steps on Thursday, you know you were more active one day than another.
On the other hand, fitness tracking devices that measure activity are becoming more accurate as technology advances, although they’re still not highly precise for measuring total calories burned or for measuring agility-related movements. One recent study analyzed the accuracy of the five most popular fitness trackers. It found these devices accurately measured within 10% the total number of steps the participants took during the study, although they weren’t as accurate for measuring calorie expenditure.
Another problem is it’s possible for people to become obsessed with the numbers in an unhealthy way. While it’s good to take more steps throughout the week, it’s not necessarily healthy to force yourself to reach some pre-determined number of steps EVERY day. Being chained to a wearable fitness tracker can destroy any joy you might get out of working out and can become an unhealthy obsession. If you invest in a fitness tracker, make sure you control it rather than letting it control you.
It’s Only the Beginning
The wearable technology market is red hot and growing all the time. In the works are devices that measure your hydration level and tell you when and how much you need to drink and even a pair of glasses that uses light therapy to change your circadian rhythms. Expect to see more wearables come on the market to tempt you and encourage you to part with your money.
The Bottom Line
Wearable technology is growing by leaps and bounds. Whether it can make you more active depends on you. Wearing one of these devices gives you feedback and accountability. What they won’t do is do the work for you. Of course, you already know that, didn’t you?
References:
NY Times Well. “Assessing the Fitness of Wearable Tech”
Fitness Magazine. “How to Use Wearable Tech Gadgets”
Times of India. “The Drawbacks of Wearable Fitness Trackers”
Wearable Technology News.
Blast. “Do Fitness Trackers Work?”
Related Articles By Cathe:
Does Wearing an Activity Tracker Help with Weight Loss?
10,000 Steps a Day: How Many People Actually Do It?
2017 Fitness Trends: What’s Hot
