By Joel Werner and Tegan Osborne.
Fitness trackers are the accessory of the moment for the aspirationally active — you can see them dangling from wrists and pinned to belts everywhere.
Figures suggest about one in five of us use some form of wearable technology.
These devices claim to track everything from steps to sleep. But does the science stack up?
Market research shows that up to 50 per cent of people stop using their wearable device within 12 months.
According to Dr Mitesh Patel, an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Healthcare Management at the University of Pennsylvania, the people who are mostly likely to see benefits from using a fitness tracker are those who are already motivated and engaged in their health.
“Those individuals tend to be able to take this data and literally run with it,” he said.
“Whereas the people who have chronic conditions or are obese or have diabetes, for those folks giving a device is often not enough.”
But if you’re not one of those people who already enjoys running at the crack of dawn and eating salad, there is still hope.
Dr Patel said technology needed to be paired with “effective behaviour change strategies” in order for people to improve their health.
So he took people who were overweight or obese and examined the effect of a financial incentive on their motivation to achieve a daily goal of 7,000 steps.
Group support and personal accountability key
Those in the control group, who were given no financial incentive, achieved their goal about 30 per cent of the time.
The next two groups — one which received $1.40 incentive each day the goal was reached and the other which could win up to $50 each time in a lottery — both achieved their goal 35 to 36 per cent of the time.
Top Comments
I have a fitness tracker as I sit down for work all day and like to be aware of how much movement I've made through the day. I start off with a long walk every morning and if I didn't do that I would barely make 5000 steps a day - it's quite shocking actually!
I love my fitness tracker. sometimes it drives me mental when the distance on a treadmill run is half what the treadmill distance is, but it does give me something to compare myself against, and it helps me keep track and show my improvements. I have been using one for 18 months and have only missed one day with it (devo) and lost 20kg. It give me a mark that I can measure myself against.