Over the last seven or eight years, I’ve developed a habit. Whenever I feel calm or bored during the day, I just open up my smartphone’s health app and check my step count without thinking. If it’s late and there aren’t many people around, you might decide to go out and walk a few blocks or take the long walk home. If your average is low at the end of a busy month, you might try taking a few extra long walks to bring your average up. And if it’s low at the end of a busy year, you’ll almost certainly fall into a spiral of self-blame. What exactly was I doing with my time that was more important than completing my daily minimum number of steps?
My pedometer guilt is made possible by the proliferation of health tracking technology. Over the past decade, a dizzying array of smartwatches, activity-monitoring apps, and even high-tech activewear have flooded the market, each promising to support users in their quest to live their best, healthiest lives. These tools count a person’s heart rate, sleep time, and even walk length (and whether or not you should worry about it). They are programmed into our phones, worn on our wrists, and even forced upon us. by a creepy employer. The entire fitness regime is packed with complex points systems, and digital rewards are designed based on accumulated data. What was once just a health tool has grown into a multibillion-dollar market. But are this deluge of data making Americans healthier?
While it’s true that some people are motivated to move more because their phones or watches remind them to do so, for others, the proverbial carrot of self-optimization becomes a source of dangerous obsession. There is a possibility. Far from being a silver bullet solution to healthy living, these always-on tools and the culture of self-optimization they foster can get in the way of our well-being.
When the numbers take over
The 10,000 step benchmark has long been the base goal for smartphone apps and fitness trackers. Despite its cultural cachet, the 10,000-step benchmark was not developed by scientists.Instead, it is marketing campaign Japanese company Yamasa used it to promote a new pedometer gadget during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. An actual peer-reviewed study subsequently found that it takes time. much fewer steps 10,000 steps a day remains the gold standard to significantly lower your risk of death. The allure of 10,000 steps makes some sense. It’s a nice, round number that’s easy to remember, and in East Asia it symbolizes the idea of abundance. Most importantly, it provides reassuringly direct health goals. This is a goal that is easier to focus on than a cluttered picture of happiness.
Research shows that a numbers-heavy approach to happiness can actively undermine the formation of sustainable, healthy habits.
When the Fitbit tracker was released in 2009, 45 years after Yamasa’s gadget cemented the 10,000-step ideal in the public consciousness, it sparked a boom in fitness wearables and a frenzy over health data. From 2010 to 2015, the company’s sales increased from 58,000 units annually to nearly 21.4 million units. Just as the iPhone revolutionized the mobile phone market, the debut of his Apple Watch eight years ago established the fitness wearable as a desirable lifestyle product paving the way for self-optimization. . This flood of easily accessible health data is certainly having some positive effects.many studies show that Fitness trackers can provide: Users who are at least motivated to exercise In the short term. Considering that, overwhelming majority of Americans don’t meet the weekly exercise quota recommended by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, but even a little extra exercise can have a big positive impact on your health. Research shows that for every 2,000 steps a person takes each day, their risk of premature death increases. might fall It increases by 8% to 11%.
Amanda Palucci, a physical activity epidemiologist and kinesiologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who studies the health benefits of fitness tracking technology, says that for “moderately active” individuals like me, apps and wearables are said it could be a “great tool.” Quantifying your movement makes it easier to gradually increase your daily exercise incentives, helps prevent injuries, and makes being more active more achievable. Many fitness tracking products also have built-in social sharing features, which can give you a better perspective on how your exercise habits compare to those of your friends, giving you a little bit of healthy competition for motivation. provided as.
The guilt and anxiety I feel from staring down the last few hours of a 300-step workday isn’t necessarily great, but the numbers push me to rack up a few thousand steps before the total resets at midnight. If I have to (and it sometimes does), data will ultimately make me healthier. This is an intermittently effective Band-Aid for the sedentary work that has become a part of my daily life. However, while there are positive aspects, data overload can also lead to unhealthy stereotypes and negative effects in the future.
There is no one-size-fits-all health indicator
Despite his pro-tracking stance, Paruch acknowledges there are downsides to living by the numbers on a scale or screen. “The thing about physical activity and any kind of health behavior is that it’s based on the individual,” she told me. “The amount of activity needed to achieve a variety of health benefits, such as lowering blood pressure, improving mental health, and lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease, varies from person to person.”
The best fitness plan for a person depends on a variety of factors, including age, presence of chronic health conditions, and even genetic makeup. This inherent variability means that trying to beat someone else’s fitness metrics or striving to meet static goals set by an app can be a double-edged sword. Masu.Research suggests an active numerical approach to happiness weaken Forming sustainable healthy habits.that Gamify your fitness goals Effectively reduces the care of our complex systems to arbitrary targets without considering the big picture of what a particular body needs on any given day. This route is useful for people who need a to-do list of itemized tasks to get things done, but it’s a healthy choice to go beyond the limited scope of hitting selected daily benchmarks. is rarely supported. For example, if you’re meeting your calorie requirements with a meal of Pilsner and French fries, it doesn’t really matter whether you’re consuming as much energy as you can burn.
If you’re obsessed with numbers, excuse my French, your brain will really go crazy.
John Toner, professor of health sciences at the University of Hull in the UK, warned: “If you think of your physical activity solely as a numerical output, you have little choice but to think of your body as a quantity of something.”be 2018 Papers Published in the journal “Performance Enhancement and Health”. “Maybe I’m just fat, or I can only produce a certain amount of force,” Toner continued, adding that while the measurements may encourage people to increase their activity, in the long run, He explained that the intrinsic motivation to perform the activity may also decrease. These activities can become less enjoyable, and what should be recreation can even turn into a more productive chore.
Then there’s pimping and pestering. Many health and fitness tracking apps and wearables issue notifications throughout the day to encourage users toward their exercise goals. While these small reminders are helpful for some people, they can also fuel users’ anxiety about their personal accomplishments and cause people to focus too much on numbers.In some cases, users rearrange your whole life in a harmful way to achieve daily goals. Research shows that tracking movement is possible. linked The number of patients with eating disorders is increasing due to their restrictive behavioral patterns. the study Investigating whether the use of wearable fitness trackers contributes to the development of eating disorders.
“When you’re obsessed with numbers, excuse my French, it really drives you crazy,” said Kathleen Kronemer, a St. Louis-based personal trainer. In her more than 30 years of work, she’s seen many clients obsessing over calories, miles, steps, and pounds long before today’s technology-enhanced trackers.But the rise of new gadgets is driving what Kronemer calls a movement. Techorexia, a term used to refer to people who use fitness wearables to promote restrictive diets and excessive exercise. Kronemer said it was a similar trend in 2000 when she entered a residential treatment program for anorexia and was fitted with a feeding tube.
Today, Kronemer sees both sides of the fitness tracking debate. While these apps and wearables aren’t the cause of eating disorders or over-exercising, they pose a significant risk for people who struggle to separate their pursuit of health from the strict rules enforced by fitness metrics. At the same time, she recognizes that many people could benefit from the extra boost that numbers, goals, and a little competition can bring. She believes her own husband has become a better athlete because of the Apple Watch.
“In a perfect world, people would say, ‘Let me use this data as a guide,’ rather than, ‘Let me believe this like it’s the Bible,'” Kronemer says. “People treat it like a GPS. If it says, ‘Go straight three blocks and turn right,’ you think, ‘I better not do anything else. If I do that, I’m a failure.’ I just think there should be a happy medium, but Americans don’t function in a happy medium. ”
endless optimization
The appeal of fitness tracking apps has a lot to do with the psychological tricks they play on individual users, but they also attract people because of how easily they fit into our fast-paced lives. Hectic work schedules, car-dependent commuting, and the unholy convenience of food delivery services have made it more difficult than ever to take care of ourselves.a study The average American adult spent 6.5 hours per day sitting in 2016, an hour more than in 2007, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Today’s numbers may be even higher given continued improvements in app-based convenience.
These modern pressures, combined with an obsession with optimizing efficiency, have pushed healthy habits to the sidelines for Americans. And fitness technology is there to help us digest everything easily. In fact, the original Japanese pedometer was It is said that This was created after an exchange between Yamasa’s founder and a doctor who suggested that the nation’s new prosperity was creating new conveniences that were, in turn, discouraging physical activity. .
The pursuit of fitness is co-opted by Americans’ (excessive) work ethic. Rather than valuing health as something worth pursuing in itself, fitness is pursued as a means to an end. People work out to be more focused and productive at work, or to feel more confident to become better workers. Or, you guessed it, to become more attractive in order to succeed in your career.
When the pedometer in your health app reminds you that you’re barely moving, you feel like a failure. But the truth is, these disappointing numbers mean that I was living my days just as most Americans are taught. That means prioritizing completing more tasks and doing everything you can to release enough tension to repeat the entire process tomorrow. My step count is low because I am dutifully working hard and putting my health on the back burner.
Fitness tracking isn’t a silver bullet, but it’s not inherently contradictory to the cause. Despite my ambivalence, I suspect that I will always rely on certain technological tools to keep myself honest and active, hopefully for many years to come. For others, the tool may do more harm than good. Everyone and every body is different.
Kelli María Korducki is a journalist focused on jobs, technology, and culture. She is based in New York City.
