Does it make you fitter?
Wearable fitness technology is the big thing now. You wear a device such as a Fitbit, iWatch, or Jawbone, to name a few, around your wrist and it claims to monitor your exercise, sleep, activity level, steps, heart rate, etc. It claims to give you the motivation you need to be more active, but does it really make you fitter? Recent research debunks these claims that you will get fitter. Just because you have a rubber bracelet around your wrist tracking and recording your every move, doesn’t mean you will actually change your behaviors. Making changes to your health and fitness takes more than a bracelet. You still need to be motivated to consistently exercise and eat healthy and make that a part of your lifestyle. It is up to you to do that – not a tracking bracelet.
What can the bracelet do?
What the tracking can do for you is show you just how active or inactive you really are. It can show you how sedentary you may really be at work and how active you are doing every day things such as running errands or cleaning the house. While it’s shouldn’t be hard to consciously decide to take more walks and change up your daily routine, it would be great to get some help actually making it happen. Unfortunately, a bracelet can’t do that. Fitness strategies that include encouragement, social competition and effective feedback are what can lead to changed behaviors.
Will it change your health and fitness?
Although sales of these wearable devices are predicted to surpass $50 billion annually by 2018, surveys have shown that more than half of the people who purchase a wearable device eventually stop using it and more than one-third do so within six months of purchase. Again, it is up to you to commit to make fitness and health an important part of your life – a device can’t do that for you.