7 ms·

Effectiveness of wearable activity trackers to increase physical activity

196 points by lxm 3y ago

vorpalhex 3y ago
Meta study, > Taken together, the meta-analyses suggested activity trackers improved physical activity (standardised mean difference [SMD] 0·3–0·6), body composition (SMD 0·7–2·0), and fitness (SMD 0·3), equating to approximately 1800 extra steps per day, 40 min per day more walking, and reductions of approximately 1 kg in bodyweight. Effects for other physiological (blood pressure, cholesterol, and glycosylated haemoglobin) and psychosocial (quality of life and pain) outcomes were typically small and often non-significant. So not nothing but a very small intervention.
- tomtheelder 3y ago
  Sources suggest 3-4000 steps on average for Americans, so an extra 1800 is actually a pretty big deal. 40 minutes of walking is no small thing for many.
  - dundarious 3y ago
    AFAIK (brisk) walking 40-90mins a day is the only exercise shown to increase longevity, and that in the US it is a target that is routinely not met. Sounds like a really substantial improvement (as long as the "brisk" target is also met).
    - 0_____0 3y ago
      How is 'brisk' defined? When training for cycling I use heart rate zones to choose the right level of exertion for a workout. Zone 2 (115-145bpm roughly, in my case) is widely thought to be the lowest intensity range that yields positive training adaptation. So, I wonder- is a brisk walk maybe equivalent to low zone 2 exercise? Or lower than that even?
      - dundarious 3y ago
        It's pretty damn low. Probably even below 90bpm. Can't remember.
        0_____0 3y ago
        I know people with a resting HR that high!
        dundarious 3y ago
        I'm being completely serious when I say (as a non-doctor), that unless they have a specific heart condition, I presume it would substantially lower if they did some brisk walking. To give you another idea of just how low intensity "brisk" is, one indicator I've seen used is "you can talk in a conversation with relative comfort, but you couldn't sing without getting a bit out of breath". That's how general the advice is, and that's sufficient to improve longevity. More is better, but you're already somewhat close to the bottom of the J curve just doing that (marathon level and beyond is where more is worse again, if I'm remembering correctly). This isn't my original source, but what I found that seems to agree with my memory: 10.1016/j.pop.2013.08.002 There are recommendations for other exercise in there, but none of it is related to longevity, based on my skim.
araes 3y ago
Surprisingly positive. Personally thought activity trackers might have a fairly short term interest effect, with boredom or laziness after several months. https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2589-7500%2822%2900111-X https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2589-7500%2822... "wearable activity trackers increased step counts on average by around 1800 steps per day, walking time by approximately 40 min per day, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) by around 6 min per day." "effects were in favourable directions (ie, negative effects suggesting improvement in BMI, blood pressure, cholesterol, glycosylated haemoglobin, and waist circumference and bodyweight, and positive effects suggesting improvement in aerobic capacity)" "strong effects on step counts at 4–6 months (increase of 1127 [95% CI 710–1543] steps per day), [...smaller effect on] step counts up to 4 years (an increase of 494 [251–738] steps per day), [...another found] small but non-significant beneficial effects up to 1–2 years (BMI –0·21 kg/m², 95% CI –1·06 to 0·65).
mmanfrin 3y ago
I feel this is a no-brainer and it's nice to have a meta study confirm it. I won't be surprised if we start seeing health insurance plans offer rebates or discounts to people who use them.
- codeulike 3y ago
  I was really surprised to read of the positive results. Because I naturally assume that fads are just fads, based on marketing or fashion, and all the activity tracking watches that appeared over the last decade really seemed like a fad.
  - Gigachad 3y ago
    I feel like the gamification and reminders on the Apple Watch are not that compelling, but having long term history tracking of some stats actually is interesting. A few years ago I moved out of the suburbs and in to an inner city apartment. Decided to just get rid of my car and walk everywhere. I made no effort to actively exercise, but just went about my daily life. What surprised me is that since I went car free, my average heart rate has been constantly declining and my weight has as well. I don't follow any kind of diet and don't really do intensive exercise (until recently). Just getting rid of my car and walking around massively improved my health in ways my apple watch can pick up.
- shanusmagnus 3y ago
  At least one such insurance plan has been around for a few years now. See e.g. All Savers Motion. (Can't find a link that gives plan details that isn't a PDF, sorry.)
- fnands 3y ago
  Very much a thing in some places. Discovery (SA) gives you rewards points for activities, among them step counts: https://www.discovery.co.za/vitality/active-rewards-goals https://www.discovery.co.za/vitality/active-rewards-goals
- FrankoDelMar 3y ago
  I have personally seen multiple health insurance plans offer a free Fitbit upon enrollment in their targeted coaching programs. They find the highest cost patients, typically with cardiovascular or diabetes risk, and use the data from a Fitbit, a bluetooth connected blood pressure monitor, glucose monitor, to identify who is at greatest risk and target them for "coaching," which tends to be a form of outsourced telehealth.
el_benhameen 3y ago
Anecdata point: I was very active before I got an Apple Watch, but having the watch has increased my activity in two ways. First, it scratches the part of my brain that loves routines; meeting a daily goal provides a dopamine hit beyond that from the activity itself. Second, it provides an extra nudge on days when I might otherwise have said “ah, I’m feeling lazy/tired/unmotivated etc., I’m going to skip today.” I didn’t initially think I would care about the rings, but I think they’ve contributed to my health overall.
- hombre_fatal 3y ago
  I replaced Strava (explicitly starting and ending my run) with aiming for 10k+ steps per day. I ended up much more active since I was incentivized to do activities that would incidentally increase my steps, like walking during a phone call, rather than having a rigid, more stressful “I am on a run” state where I’m fixated on my pace metrics.
  - jupp0r 3y ago
    Running is much more beneficial as you are in completely different heart rate zones as a simple walk. Don't use the step count itself as a goal.
    - hombre_fatal 3y ago
      I still run. But I walk too. And I now don't feel like I'm messing up any sort of pace metric when my run becomes a walk or a phone call or I drop and do 30 pushups every kilometer, etc. It led to a large increase of daily activity. It's like how I became a home cook when I bought my first bluetooth headphones. Suddenly I could comfortably listen to Youtube debates and podcasts and audiobooks, needed something to do with my hands while listening to them, and ended up learning to enjoy spending time in the kitchen. It's funny how little changes can have a large impact on your daily life.
      - Loic 3y ago
        All these little changes reduced friction in the right direction.
linsomniac 3y ago
My personal experience is just one data point, but an activity tracker has been an important part over the last 4 years of improving my health dramatically. 4 years ago I was sedentary, and was experiencing some pretty nasty hip pain that was really starting to get in the way of even my sedentary life (standing or walking for an hour or two became amazingly painful for days). This week, according to my watch, I have 870 "Activity Minutes", I use my treadmill basically every day, and I never would have imagined I would say this, but I enjoy jogging. My hip pain has much more manageable. Part of that is definitely the encouragement from the fitness tracker. Part of it is also using the data from the fitness tracker to adjust my activity and sleep. Part of it is my health insurance has a gamification where I earn money for activity, and also get to low key compete with others. I think it pays me nearly a grand a year for activity, all told. Honestly, I feel 20 years younger.
- caminante 3y ago
  > Honestly, I feel 20 years younger. Sleep monitoring is big, but did you lose weight and bring your BMI < 25? There's no drug that can deliver the same, positive health impact as going obese/overweight to "healthy" BMI. Losing weight is typically not about more exercise.
  - whatabb 3y ago
    > Losing weight is typically not about more exercise. Losing weight is about figuring out a way for you to be in a caloric deficit. Once you learn that, you know exactly* how much exercise impacts weight loss. 300 calories is what I can typically burn on a treadmill session. That's accounts for about a third of my deficit goal. What it really means is that I can eat 300 more calories that day, which helps tremendously to keep me from feeling too hungry. *okay, nothing is exact with weight loss but you get my point.
    - linsomniac 3y ago
      Agreed, I didn't lose weight by exercising. I lost weight by going into a calorie deficit. It takes about 3,500 calories to gain/lose one lbs. Like you, my target deficit is around 900 calories a day, I really don't count the calories in exercise. "You can't outrun a bad diet."
ls612 3y ago
My Apple Watch isn’t perfect but it’s pretty accurate in measuring exercise nowadays. It was much rougher in the first year or two though, they have certainly improved the hardware and software.
barrkel 3y ago
> 40 min per day more walking [...] psychosocial (quality of life and pain) outcomes were typically small and often non-significant Interesting if 40 more minutes a day walking didn't have much if any effect on happiness.
- boringuser2 3y ago
  The problem is the pace. Walking briskly and casually walking are very different activities.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    As if walking briskly would make people with shitty lives and situational depression (like, tons, judging from statistics and related depression drug usage) happy? Exercize is good for endorphins and depression, but let's not oversell it on inducing hapiness.
    - moritzwarhier 3y ago
      Walking at the sides of busy roads is very different from walking around a calm neighbourhood, or even a park, a forest or any other environment which is not high-density urban or industrialized, polluted and ugly roads. The good options are inaccessible to a large part of the world's population during work week. Therefore this study misses crucial factors and is an excersise (pun unintended) in absurdity. Still, I also see some positive effects from Apple Fitness gamification even without the watch, and I'm privileged enough to be able to reach a park in 15 minutes.
      - foxes 3y ago
        Wow it’s almost like turning cities into a car filled hellscape was a bad idea.
      - Gigachad 3y ago
        Walking in American cities is awful, but if you live in a good country that limits vehicle access its super relaxing to walk around the city and see all the cool stuff going on. No toxic fumes. No engine noise. No risk of sudden death. Just the low background noise of footsteps, chatter, people laughing, etc.
Ensorceled 3y ago
> [...] equating to approximately 1800 extra steps per day, 40 min per day more walking, and reductions of approximately 1 kg in bodyweight. My morning walk is about 40 min per day and about 4km (distance varies but I'm pretty reliably 6km per hour) and that works out to about 4500 steps. So 1800 steps in 40 min more walking seems to be a REALLY slow walk, less than 3km per hour.
mauvehaus 3y ago
Got one on sale after New Years when Garmin was clearancing out the old Instincts to make way for v2 of the same. My intention was just to be more aware of my activity level and at least make informed choices. The imaginary internet points have proven remarkably effective at keeping my step count up since then. I hate admitting as much, but I guess in this case it's a force for good?
iancmceachern 3y ago
I can tell you from wearing a fit bit for a few years, in my personal experience all it did was increase my anxiety.
- liotier 3y ago
  I found that even the distance computer on my bicycle was not producing actionable data - only anxiety. Nowadays, I consider non-actionable data as a cost. If it is entertainment, then that is luxury for which I accept the cost. Otherwise, I cut it. I used to love fancy dashboards with everything and extra cheese - not anymore: I try to understand what is input to my actions and what is blinkenlights. With no distance computer on my bicycle, I feel free: I cycle daily wherever I fancy and the numbers don't matter ! I still consider distance at the planning stage but, once I'm on the road I don't want to think about it.
- gnz11 3y ago
  Same experience. Eventually I realized the data wasn’t providing me anything useful and it was just zapping the fun of being active. When I go outside the last thing I want to be thinking of are metrics and other such self improvement things.
efxhoy 3y ago
After an ios update where my phone started tracking a move ring (I was lazy and accepted some new defaults) I was definitely more motivated to close it every day. I noticed I was walking more so a few weeks ago when my old watch died I bought an apple watch so that I can also “count” my active workouts like lifting weights too. It’s not a huge effect but it’s definitely helpful. It’s great that the otherwise annoying “attention hacking” from my devices feels like they’re actually helping me. And whoever came up with the ring design deserves a lot of credit, they look and feel really good. The default notification settings are a bit too chatty though.
SamPatt 3y ago
I'll add to the anecdotes here: I lost 90 lbs and got fit over the past five years, and my Fitbit played an important role in that. Initially, it was helpful for me to be aware of my overall physical activity. Weight loss is mostly diet, but I didn't have a clue about my average steps or my heart rate during exercise. I got to watch my resting heart rate drop from the 70s down to the 40s as I picked up cycling, hiking, and regular walks. When I began weightlifting and other more strenuous training, I then understood my heart rate zones and could track my progress. Gaining a deeper understanding of my body and seeing progress over time was very motivating. Definitely a big positive for me.
naveen99 3y ago
How about a mental activity tracker to increase mental activity ? Too much physical activity makes me dumber. Playing bullet or blitz chess might consume as many calories as walking per unit time.
- meroes 3y ago
  Give me Google Glass so I can do both! I rarely add new gadgets to my life but I can’t help but constantly wishing I could watch lectures while exercising. The exercises aren’t something any other type of visual display could supplement.
m3kw9 3y ago
Doesn’t do anything for me, it may serve as a clutch but you always fall back to average without any solid habit/life/situation changes
- prawn 3y ago
  crutch?
awb 3y ago
> In total, 39 systematic reviews and meta-analyses were identified, reporting results from 163 992 participants spanning all age groups, from both healthy and clinical populations. Taken together, the meta-analyses suggested activity trackers improved physical activity (standardised mean difference [SMD] 0·3–0·6), body composition (SMD 0·7–2·0), and fitness (SMD 0·3), equating to approximately 1800 extra steps per day, 40 min per day more walking, and reductions of approximately 1 kg in bodyweight. Effects for other physiological (blood pressure, cholesterol, and glycosylated haemoglobin) and psychosocial (quality of life and pain) outcomes were typically small and often non-significant. Activity trackers appear to be effective at increasing physical activity in a variety of age groups and clinical and non-clinical populations. The benefit is clinically important and is sustained over time. Based on the studies evaluated, there is sufficient evidence to recommend the use of activity trackers. That seems remarkably effective. It’s in line with my personal experience as well. Unfortunately, it also occupied a part of my daily headspace. I was exercising more with the tracker, but without the tracker I enjoy exercise more as it feels less goal-oriented.
- andreareina 3y ago
  I'm very physically active, and I still feel driven to hit my watch's 10k steps and 10 floors goals to keep the streak going. Even though 95% of the time when I haven't hit the steps it's because I've been on the bike instead.
block_dagger 3y ago
As a longtime P90X (video workout series) devotee, I’ve enjoyed a similar effect before the trackers. As Tony Horton says, “keep showing up, keep pressing play.” Routine creates healthy habits.
RecycledEle 3y ago
Nobody is asking: Are these step counters accurate? It can be very enlightening to wear two of them (one on each wrist) for a few weeks. I find one is often going to read 50% more than the other one.
- sudosysgen 3y ago
  If you want you can turn on automatic GPS tracking on most smartwatches so you won't have to worry about that. That said, I haven't had that experience - my watch and my phone are bang on if I am to count the steps myself manually.
- lacrimacida 3y ago
  You may be moving your arms in different ways. To compare reading counts between two devices I’d use both on the same wrist. But I think in the end it really doesn’t matter how accurate they are if the effect is one that these devices make us move more.
- sulam 3y ago
  Most tracker apps have a setting you can apply that indicates which wrist you’re wearing it on, your dominant or your non-dominant hand. This is mostly so that the steps algorithm can adjust (somewhat imperfectly) for how your dominant hand sees a lot more motion throughout the day. As such a couple questions are interesting here: 1) are you using that setting, and is it set correctly? 2) are you by any chance ambidextrous? Regarding accuracy in general, a quick scan of the abstract didn’t comment on it, just noting that people who wear trackers tend to be more active and have the health benefits associated with that. In general, step tracking at the wrists is actually fairly difficult and many activities both interfere with recognizing steps (walking a stroller is a big one) or register as steps despite not having taken any (washing the dishes will get you a lot of steps). There’s a reason Fitbit has allowed for wearing a tracker on your hip for many years. You can also enable step tracking on your phone, and it will be quite accurate as long as your phone is in a hip pocket. All of that said, the latest research on the subject shows that you’re best off being active, where activity is defined as 150 minutes per week of heart-rate elevating activity, whether that’s walking or something else. There’s also a strong effect for walking immediately after a meal that has some separate benefit with respect to regulating blood sugar. If you can combine the two, even better.
Larrikin 3y ago
Its studies like this and my own experience that makes me so annoyed that Google seems to be intentionally killing the FitBit brand. They first removed all of the social features, which was a massive encouragement for large swathes of my friends and family. You have one family member that is training regularly for 5ks, half-marathons, marathons, etc and its always nice to just be able to get anywhere close to their steps for the week. Have a friend that you usually can beat, all of a sudden you're encouraged to hop on the treadmill and get an extra 1000 steps in that day. Theres a poor alternative called Stridekick, that seems to check all the boxes as a replacement, but just somehow is just poorly designed enough to be an app no one actually wants to use. Now they've issued an update that is bricking Fitbit devices and are just sending out coupons to buy a new one. Whats frustrating is that the market seems completely devoid of anything currently to replace them. All the halfway decent options are all huge clunky smartwatches. If you have no interest in apps on your wrist, because you already own a phone, it seems like the only option is the ugliest Garmin I've ever seen or Chinese ones of unknown quality that do not connect to any of the fitness ecosystem. When my FitBit seemingly got hit with a bug that killed it, (worked fine one day, then suddenly battery only lasted an hour after just over a year of owning it), I desperately looked for an alternative and ended up stuck getting the cheapest FitBit. It really wasn't an option to forgo not having a device as my insurance pays me up to 90 bucks a month for hitting my step goals.
- andreareina 3y ago
  I have the Venu and I think it looks alright for everyday wear. The Vivomove and Lily lines also have physical hour/minute hands and really downplay the smartwatch aspect if that's your thing.
  - yread 3y ago
    yeah or withings or fossil. But they are all quite a bit bigger than inspire
- buttscicles 3y ago
  Maybe look into a Whoop device. Their business model is unique in the space as it's a subscription, but the tracker itself is solid, has no screen and can be worn a number of ways if you don't want it on your wrist.
sudosysgen 3y ago
I used mine for the past month or two to track my activity and plan my weight loss - it's been surprisingly accurate. Being able to log calories right from my wrist instantly is great to prevent me from forgetting, and the total caloric expenditure estimation has been surprisingly accurate as compared to results on the scale.
john61 3y ago
A study of measuring the effectiveness of selling your car to increase physical activity would be very interesting. But in our present economical logic who would profit from such a study and finance it?
- stephen_g 3y ago
  There's probably a lot of infrastructure work that would have to be done for that to be practical for a lot of people. I'm lucky that where I live in Australia I can actually do quite a few trips without the car (I would quite like an electric bike with some cargo storage to be able to do more, but I haven't made the fairly big investment yet), but the situation in a lot of places in the US (especially suburbia there) seems like to get a lot of places, walking and cycling can be quite dangerous or inconvenient. Improving this definitely should be a priority for cities though, on so many points (climate, reducing pollution, improving health from the exercise, reducing car traffic by moving trips to other modes, reducing car noise, etc. etc.)
stephen_g 3y ago
For me it was increasing physical activity that made me want to get the tracker, so I could see how I was progressing when I started swimming. But perhaps it has helped me keep at it! I do about an hour of swimming twice a week now - started at half an hour once a week, then gradually increased the time, then started going more than once, it's made a big difference! I also wanted to improve my diet (and cut sugary drinks like soft drinks and juices), and then after a year or two found that I was losing weight to the point where I was a bit lighter than I wanted to be, so I had to increase how much I was eating a bit to make up for the deficit. That had definitely never happened before, I'd been gradually increasing my weight prior to that.
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j7ake 3y ago
Can these trackers be used to encourage other activities? Like do more math exercises?
- fnands 3y ago
  LeetcodeBit instead of FitBit? ;-)
proee 3y ago
Seeing my estimated VO2 max number rise and my resting heart rate going down is super motivating on my Apple Watch. I thought it would feel like a boat anchor being tracked all the time, but I really enjoy seeing all the heart metrics.
verisimi 3y ago
With regards to the worth of the gadget... Is it better to be slightly more physically healthy but have less privacy, or retain privacy but miss the potential benefit? This is a question for present age. You'd think that knowing the amount of steps you do etc in a day would certainly be your information for one's own eyes only, but no - corporations are heavily involved.
meroes 3y ago
Guess I’m one of those weird ones who returned my Fitbit and never use my Apple Watch. I liked them to establish baselines for new activities or trails but anything else was a hindrance. But even then what’s the point. Maybe I don’t think of exercise as something to maximize. Just has to be good enough. It many cases hindrance came from comparing walks. When it’s much better for me to just pick the walk that suits my mood, not the most strenuous.
Temporary_31337 3y ago
So the study says it increases activity. But it also says: “Effects for other physiological (blood pressure, cholesterol, and glycosylated haemoglobin) and psychosocial (quality of life and pain) outcomes were typically small and often non-significant.” so what’s the point of the extra activity?
- fabatka 3y ago
  My thoughts exactly. Goodhart's law and "cargo cult fitness" come to my mind.
ldes 3y ago
Impressive results, but I think it is important to keep in mind that most of the examined studies in this meta-analysis combined wearable activity trackers with an intervention. The effect of only using a wearable is probably much smaller and the duration of the effect is unclear. From the limitations section of the discussion: “Although this umbrella review provides strong assurance of the efficacy of wearable activity trackers in increasing physical activity, few of the systematic reviews and meta-analyses examined the effectiveness of wearable activity trackers alone. […] the multifaceted interventions yielded effects around 50% larger than those using wearable activity trackers alone.”
- dmurray 3y ago
  What's considered an "intervention"? If your phone or watch sending you notifications to be more active counts, doesn't every activity tracker come with that feature? I can imagine wearing an apparently-inert bracelet that gets your activity reported back to researchers at the university would have a smaller motivational effect.
  - ldes 3y ago
    Indeed, almost all trackers come with notifications and in the study notifications are included in the wearable-based intervention. The result of 50% larger effects in multifaceted interventions versus wearable-based interventions is from a study by Brickwood (2019). In this study, they distinguish wearable-based interventions (interventions that included tools such as regular emails, text messages, online algorithms, or smartphone apps) and multifaceted interventions (using in addition established behavioral change techniques such as group or individual counseling or information sessions, financial incentives, or telephone counseling). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6484266/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6484266/
  - Manfred 3y ago
    An intervention is a technical term for making a change to someone’s exercise schedule or approach.
inglor_cz 3y ago
To add my own anecdote. I am easily drawn in by the numbers game and, as a result, I started to walk even in conditions that would keep me at home several years ago. Freezing weather, rains, serious heat. My immunity has improved a lot, and I think it comes from the relentless exposure to all kinds of Central European weather. I no longer experience bouts of cold etc., and except for Covid, I didn't have anything flu-like even in winter, when there was an obvious wave of respiratory diseases all around.
vonnik 3y ago
This is a permutation of the Hawthorne Effect, which is individuals' modification of behavior in response to being observed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect Most effective if you are being observed by strangers, rather than your future self. Has ramifications for diet (food logs a very effective intervention, maybe more than any particular regime), and it strikes me that it's also part of surveillance states' playbook. Peter Attia cites the Hawthorne Effect here and in his podcast episode on good v bad science: https://peterattiamd.com/what-i-actually-eat-part-ii-ifik-2/ https://peterattiamd.com/what-i-actually-eat-part-ii-ifik-2/

196 points by lxm 3y ago

Meta study, > Taken together, the meta-analyses suggested activity trackers improved physical activity (standardised mean difference [SMD] 0·3–0·6), body composition (SMD 0·7–2·0), and fitness (SMD 0·3), equating to approximately 1800 extra steps per day, 40 min per day more walking, and reductions of approximately 1 kg in bodyweight. Effects for other physiological (blood pressure, cholesterol, and glycosylated haemoglobin) and psychosocial (quality of life and pain) outcomes were typically small and often non-significant. So not nothing but a very small intervention.

tomtheelder 3y ago
Sources suggest 3-4000 steps on average for Americans, so an extra 1800 is actually a pretty big deal. 40 minutes of walking is no small thing for many.
- dundarious 3y ago
  AFAIK (brisk) walking 40-90mins a day is the only exercise shown to increase longevity, and that in the US it is a target that is routinely not met. Sounds like a really substantial improvement (as long as the "brisk" target is also met).
  - 0_____0 3y ago
    How is 'brisk' defined? When training for cycling I use heart rate zones to choose the right level of exertion for a workout. Zone 2 (115-145bpm roughly, in my case) is widely thought to be the lowest intensity range that yields positive training adaptation. So, I wonder- is a brisk walk maybe equivalent to low zone 2 exercise? Or lower than that even?
    - dundarious 3y ago
      It's pretty damn low. Probably even below 90bpm. Can't remember.
      - 0_____0 3y ago
        I know people with a resting HR that high!
        dundarious 3y ago
        I'm being completely serious when I say (as a non-doctor), that unless they have a specific heart condition, I presume it would substantially lower if they did some brisk walking. To give you another idea of just how low intensity "brisk" is, one indicator I've seen used is "you can talk in a conversation with relative comfort, but you couldn't sing without getting a bit out of breath". That's how general the advice is, and that's sufficient to improve longevity. More is better, but you're already somewhat close to the bottom of the J curve just doing that (marathon level and beyond is where more is worse again, if I'm remembering correctly). This isn't my original source, but what I found that seems to agree with my memory: 10.1016/j.pop.2013.08.002 There are recommendations for other exercise in there, but none of it is related to longevity, based on my skim.

araes 3y ago

Surprisingly positive. Personally thought activity trackers might have a fairly short term interest effect, with boredom or laziness after several months. https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2589-7500%2822%2900111-X https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2589-7500%2822... "wearable activity trackers increased step counts on average by around 1800 steps per day, walking time by approximately 40 min per day, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) by around 6 min per day." "effects were in favourable directions (ie, negative effects suggesting improvement in BMI, blood pressure, cholesterol, glycosylated haemoglobin, and waist circumference and bodyweight, and positive effects suggesting improvement in aerobic capacity)" "strong effects on step counts at 4–6 months (increase of 1127 [95% CI 710–1543] steps per day), [...smaller effect on] step counts up to 4 years (an increase of 494 [251–738] steps per day), [...another found] small but non-significant beneficial effects up to 1–2 years (BMI –0·21 kg/m², 95% CI –1·06 to 0·65).

mmanfrin 3y ago

I feel this is a no-brainer and it's nice to have a meta study confirm it. I won't be surprised if we start seeing health insurance plans offer rebates or discounts to people who use them.

codeulike 3y ago
I was really surprised to read of the positive results. Because I naturally assume that fads are just fads, based on marketing or fashion, and all the activity tracking watches that appeared over the last decade really seemed like a fad.
- Gigachad 3y ago
  I feel like the gamification and reminders on the Apple Watch are not that compelling, but having long term history tracking of some stats actually is interesting. A few years ago I moved out of the suburbs and in to an inner city apartment. Decided to just get rid of my car and walk everywhere. I made no effort to actively exercise, but just went about my daily life. What surprised me is that since I went car free, my average heart rate has been constantly declining and my weight has as well. I don't follow any kind of diet and don't really do intensive exercise (until recently). Just getting rid of my car and walking around massively improved my health in ways my apple watch can pick up.
shanusmagnus 3y ago
At least one such insurance plan has been around for a few years now. See e.g. All Savers Motion. (Can't find a link that gives plan details that isn't a PDF, sorry.)
fnands 3y ago
Very much a thing in some places. Discovery (SA) gives you rewards points for activities, among them step counts: https://www.discovery.co.za/vitality/active-rewards-goals https://www.discovery.co.za/vitality/active-rewards-goals
FrankoDelMar 3y ago
I have personally seen multiple health insurance plans offer a free Fitbit upon enrollment in their targeted coaching programs. They find the highest cost patients, typically with cardiovascular or diabetes risk, and use the data from a Fitbit, a bluetooth connected blood pressure monitor, glucose monitor, to identify who is at greatest risk and target them for "coaching," which tends to be a form of outsourced telehealth.

el_benhameen 3y ago

Anecdata point: I was very active before I got an Apple Watch, but having the watch has increased my activity in two ways. First, it scratches the part of my brain that loves routines; meeting a daily goal provides a dopamine hit beyond that from the activity itself. Second, it provides an extra nudge on days when I might otherwise have said “ah, I’m feeling lazy/tired/unmotivated etc., I’m going to skip today.” I didn’t initially think I would care about the rings, but I think they’ve contributed to my health overall.

hombre_fatal 3y ago
I replaced Strava (explicitly starting and ending my run) with aiming for 10k+ steps per day. I ended up much more active since I was incentivized to do activities that would incidentally increase my steps, like walking during a phone call, rather than having a rigid, more stressful “I am on a run” state where I’m fixated on my pace metrics.
- jupp0r 3y ago
  Running is much more beneficial as you are in completely different heart rate zones as a simple walk. Don't use the step count itself as a goal.
  - hombre_fatal 3y ago
    I still run. But I walk too. And I now don't feel like I'm messing up any sort of pace metric when my run becomes a walk or a phone call or I drop and do 30 pushups every kilometer, etc. It led to a large increase of daily activity. It's like how I became a home cook when I bought my first bluetooth headphones. Suddenly I could comfortably listen to Youtube debates and podcasts and audiobooks, needed something to do with my hands while listening to them, and ended up learning to enjoy spending time in the kitchen. It's funny how little changes can have a large impact on your daily life.
    - Loic 3y ago
      All these little changes reduced friction in the right direction.

linsomniac 3y ago

My personal experience is just one data point, but an activity tracker has been an important part over the last 4 years of improving my health dramatically. 4 years ago I was sedentary, and was experiencing some pretty nasty hip pain that was really starting to get in the way of even my sedentary life (standing or walking for an hour or two became amazingly painful for days). This week, according to my watch, I have 870 "Activity Minutes", I use my treadmill basically every day, and I never would have imagined I would say this, but I enjoy jogging. My hip pain has much more manageable. Part of that is definitely the encouragement from the fitness tracker. Part of it is also using the data from the fitness tracker to adjust my activity and sleep. Part of it is my health insurance has a gamification where I earn money for activity, and also get to low key compete with others. I think it pays me nearly a grand a year for activity, all told. Honestly, I feel 20 years younger.

caminante 3y ago
> Honestly, I feel 20 years younger. Sleep monitoring is big, but did you lose weight and bring your BMI < 25? There's no drug that can deliver the same, positive health impact as going obese/overweight to "healthy" BMI. Losing weight is typically not about more exercise.
- whatabb 3y ago
  > Losing weight is typically not about more exercise. Losing weight is about figuring out a way for you to be in a caloric deficit. Once you learn that, you know exactly* how much exercise impacts weight loss. 300 calories is what I can typically burn on a treadmill session. That's accounts for about a third of my deficit goal. What it really means is that I can eat 300 more calories that day, which helps tremendously to keep me from feeling too hungry. *okay, nothing is exact with weight loss but you get my point.
  - linsomniac 3y ago
    Agreed, I didn't lose weight by exercising. I lost weight by going into a calorie deficit. It takes about 3,500 calories to gain/lose one lbs. Like you, my target deficit is around 900 calories a day, I really don't count the calories in exercise. "You can't outrun a bad diet."

ls612 3y ago

My Apple Watch isn’t perfect but it’s pretty accurate in measuring exercise nowadays. It was much rougher in the first year or two though, they have certainly improved the hardware and software.

barrkel 3y ago

> 40 min per day more walking [...] psychosocial (quality of life and pain) outcomes were typically small and often non-significant Interesting if 40 more minutes a day walking didn't have much if any effect on happiness.

boringuser2 3y ago
The problem is the pace. Walking briskly and casually walking are very different activities.
- coldtea 3y ago
  As if walking briskly would make people with shitty lives and situational depression (like, tons, judging from statistics and related depression drug usage) happy? Exercize is good for endorphins and depression, but let's not oversell it on inducing hapiness.
  - moritzwarhier 3y ago
    Walking at the sides of busy roads is very different from walking around a calm neighbourhood, or even a park, a forest or any other environment which is not high-density urban or industrialized, polluted and ugly roads. The good options are inaccessible to a large part of the world's population during work week. Therefore this study misses crucial factors and is an excersise (pun unintended) in absurdity. Still, I also see some positive effects from Apple Fitness gamification even without the watch, and I'm privileged enough to be able to reach a park in 15 minutes.
    - foxes 3y ago
      Wow it’s almost like turning cities into a car filled hellscape was a bad idea.
    - Gigachad 3y ago
      Walking in American cities is awful, but if you live in a good country that limits vehicle access its super relaxing to walk around the city and see all the cool stuff going on. No toxic fumes. No engine noise. No risk of sudden death. Just the low background noise of footsteps, chatter, people laughing, etc.

Ensorceled 3y ago

> [...] equating to approximately 1800 extra steps per day, 40 min per day more walking, and reductions of approximately 1 kg in bodyweight. My morning walk is about 40 min per day and about 4km (distance varies but I'm pretty reliably 6km per hour) and that works out to about 4500 steps. So 1800 steps in 40 min more walking seems to be a REALLY slow walk, less than 3km per hour.

mauvehaus 3y ago

Got one on sale after New Years when Garmin was clearancing out the old Instincts to make way for v2 of the same. My intention was just to be more aware of my activity level and at least make informed choices. The imaginary internet points have proven remarkably effective at keeping my step count up since then. I hate admitting as much, but I guess in this case it's a force for good?

iancmceachern 3y ago

I can tell you from wearing a fit bit for a few years, in my personal experience all it did was increase my anxiety.

liotier 3y ago
I found that even the distance computer on my bicycle was not producing actionable data - only anxiety. Nowadays, I consider non-actionable data as a cost. If it is entertainment, then that is luxury for which I accept the cost. Otherwise, I cut it. I used to love fancy dashboards with everything and extra cheese - not anymore: I try to understand what is input to my actions and what is blinkenlights. With no distance computer on my bicycle, I feel free: I cycle daily wherever I fancy and the numbers don't matter ! I still consider distance at the planning stage but, once I'm on the road I don't want to think about it.
gnz11 3y ago
Same experience. Eventually I realized the data wasn’t providing me anything useful and it was just zapping the fun of being active. When I go outside the last thing I want to be thinking of are metrics and other such self improvement things.

efxhoy 3y ago

After an ios update where my phone started tracking a move ring (I was lazy and accepted some new defaults) I was definitely more motivated to close it every day. I noticed I was walking more so a few weeks ago when my old watch died I bought an apple watch so that I can also “count” my active workouts like lifting weights too. It’s not a huge effect but it’s definitely helpful. It’s great that the otherwise annoying “attention hacking” from my devices feels like they’re actually helping me. And whoever came up with the ring design deserves a lot of credit, they look and feel really good. The default notification settings are a bit too chatty though.

SamPatt 3y ago

I'll add to the anecdotes here: I lost 90 lbs and got fit over the past five years, and my Fitbit played an important role in that. Initially, it was helpful for me to be aware of my overall physical activity. Weight loss is mostly diet, but I didn't have a clue about my average steps or my heart rate during exercise. I got to watch my resting heart rate drop from the 70s down to the 40s as I picked up cycling, hiking, and regular walks. When I began weightlifting and other more strenuous training, I then understood my heart rate zones and could track my progress. Gaining a deeper understanding of my body and seeing progress over time was very motivating. Definitely a big positive for me.

naveen99 3y ago

How about a mental activity tracker to increase mental activity ? Too much physical activity makes me dumber. Playing bullet or blitz chess might consume as many calories as walking per unit time.

meroes 3y ago
Give me Google Glass so I can do both! I rarely add new gadgets to my life but I can’t help but constantly wishing I could watch lectures while exercising. The exercises aren’t something any other type of visual display could supplement.

m3kw9 3y ago

Doesn’t do anything for me, it may serve as a clutch but you always fall back to average without any solid habit/life/situation changes

prawn 3y ago
crutch?

awb 3y ago

> In total, 39 systematic reviews and meta-analyses were identified, reporting results from 163 992 participants spanning all age groups, from both healthy and clinical populations. Taken together, the meta-analyses suggested activity trackers improved physical activity (standardised mean difference [SMD] 0·3–0·6), body composition (SMD 0·7–2·0), and fitness (SMD 0·3), equating to approximately 1800 extra steps per day, 40 min per day more walking, and reductions of approximately 1 kg in bodyweight. Effects for other physiological (blood pressure, cholesterol, and glycosylated haemoglobin) and psychosocial (quality of life and pain) outcomes were typically small and often non-significant. Activity trackers appear to be effective at increasing physical activity in a variety of age groups and clinical and non-clinical populations. The benefit is clinically important and is sustained over time. Based on the studies evaluated, there is sufficient evidence to recommend the use of activity trackers. That seems remarkably effective. It’s in line with my personal experience as well. Unfortunately, it also occupied a part of my daily headspace. I was exercising more with the tracker, but without the tracker I enjoy exercise more as it feels less goal-oriented.

andreareina 3y ago
I'm very physically active, and I still feel driven to hit my watch's 10k steps and 10 floors goals to keep the streak going. Even though 95% of the time when I haven't hit the steps it's because I've been on the bike instead.

block_dagger 3y ago

As a longtime P90X (video workout series) devotee, I’ve enjoyed a similar effect before the trackers. As Tony Horton says, “keep showing up, keep pressing play.” Routine creates healthy habits.

RecycledEle 3y ago

Nobody is asking: Are these step counters accurate? It can be very enlightening to wear two of them (one on each wrist) for a few weeks. I find one is often going to read 50% more than the other one.

sudosysgen 3y ago
If you want you can turn on automatic GPS tracking on most smartwatches so you won't have to worry about that. That said, I haven't had that experience - my watch and my phone are bang on if I am to count the steps myself manually.
lacrimacida 3y ago
You may be moving your arms in different ways. To compare reading counts between two devices I’d use both on the same wrist. But I think in the end it really doesn’t matter how accurate they are if the effect is one that these devices make us move more.
sulam 3y ago
Most tracker apps have a setting you can apply that indicates which wrist you’re wearing it on, your dominant or your non-dominant hand. This is mostly so that the steps algorithm can adjust (somewhat imperfectly) for how your dominant hand sees a lot more motion throughout the day. As such a couple questions are interesting here: 1) are you using that setting, and is it set correctly? 2) are you by any chance ambidextrous? Regarding accuracy in general, a quick scan of the abstract didn’t comment on it, just noting that people who wear trackers tend to be more active and have the health benefits associated with that. In general, step tracking at the wrists is actually fairly difficult and many activities both interfere with recognizing steps (walking a stroller is a big one) or register as steps despite not having taken any (washing the dishes will get you a lot of steps). There’s a reason Fitbit has allowed for wearing a tracker on your hip for many years. You can also enable step tracking on your phone, and it will be quite accurate as long as your phone is in a hip pocket. All of that said, the latest research on the subject shows that you’re best off being active, where activity is defined as 150 minutes per week of heart-rate elevating activity, whether that’s walking or something else. There’s also a strong effect for walking immediately after a meal that has some separate benefit with respect to regulating blood sugar. If you can combine the two, even better.

Larrikin 3y ago

Its studies like this and my own experience that makes me so annoyed that Google seems to be intentionally killing the FitBit brand. They first removed all of the social features, which was a massive encouragement for large swathes of my friends and family. You have one family member that is training regularly for 5ks, half-marathons, marathons, etc and its always nice to just be able to get anywhere close to their steps for the week. Have a friend that you usually can beat, all of a sudden you're encouraged to hop on the treadmill and get an extra 1000 steps in that day. Theres a poor alternative called Stridekick, that seems to check all the boxes as a replacement, but just somehow is just poorly designed enough to be an app no one actually wants to use. Now they've issued an update that is bricking Fitbit devices and are just sending out coupons to buy a new one. Whats frustrating is that the market seems completely devoid of anything currently to replace them. All the halfway decent options are all huge clunky smartwatches. If you have no interest in apps on your wrist, because you already own a phone, it seems like the only option is the ugliest Garmin I've ever seen or Chinese ones of unknown quality that do not connect to any of the fitness ecosystem. When my FitBit seemingly got hit with a bug that killed it, (worked fine one day, then suddenly battery only lasted an hour after just over a year of owning it), I desperately looked for an alternative and ended up stuck getting the cheapest FitBit. It really wasn't an option to forgo not having a device as my insurance pays me up to 90 bucks a month for hitting my step goals.

andreareina 3y ago
I have the Venu and I think it looks alright for everyday wear. The Vivomove and Lily lines also have physical hour/minute hands and really downplay the smartwatch aspect if that's your thing.
- yread 3y ago
  yeah or withings or fossil. But they are all quite a bit bigger than inspire
buttscicles 3y ago
Maybe look into a Whoop device. Their business model is unique in the space as it's a subscription, but the tracker itself is solid, has no screen and can be worn a number of ways if you don't want it on your wrist.

sudosysgen 3y ago

I used mine for the past month or two to track my activity and plan my weight loss - it's been surprisingly accurate. Being able to log calories right from my wrist instantly is great to prevent me from forgetting, and the total caloric expenditure estimation has been surprisingly accurate as compared to results on the scale.

john61 3y ago

A study of measuring the effectiveness of selling your car to increase physical activity would be very interesting. But in our present economical logic who would profit from such a study and finance it?

stephen_g 3y ago
There's probably a lot of infrastructure work that would have to be done for that to be practical for a lot of people. I'm lucky that where I live in Australia I can actually do quite a few trips without the car (I would quite like an electric bike with some cargo storage to be able to do more, but I haven't made the fairly big investment yet), but the situation in a lot of places in the US (especially suburbia there) seems like to get a lot of places, walking and cycling can be quite dangerous or inconvenient. Improving this definitely should be a priority for cities though, on so many points (climate, reducing pollution, improving health from the exercise, reducing car traffic by moving trips to other modes, reducing car noise, etc. etc.)

stephen_g 3y ago

For me it was increasing physical activity that made me want to get the tracker, so I could see how I was progressing when I started swimming. But perhaps it has helped me keep at it! I do about an hour of swimming twice a week now - started at half an hour once a week, then gradually increased the time, then started going more than once, it's made a big difference! I also wanted to improve my diet (and cut sugary drinks like soft drinks and juices), and then after a year or two found that I was losing weight to the point where I was a bit lighter than I wanted to be, so I had to increase how much I was eating a bit to make up for the deficit. That had definitely never happened before, I'd been gradually increasing my weight prior to that.

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j7ake 3y ago

Can these trackers be used to encourage other activities? Like do more math exercises?

fnands 3y ago
LeetcodeBit instead of FitBit? ;-)

proee 3y ago

Seeing my estimated VO2 max number rise and my resting heart rate going down is super motivating on my Apple Watch. I thought it would feel like a boat anchor being tracked all the time, but I really enjoy seeing all the heart metrics.

verisimi 3y ago

With regards to the worth of the gadget... Is it better to be slightly more physically healthy but have less privacy, or retain privacy but miss the potential benefit? This is a question for present age. You'd think that knowing the amount of steps you do etc in a day would certainly be your information for one's own eyes only, but no - corporations are heavily involved.

meroes 3y ago

Guess I’m one of those weird ones who returned my Fitbit and never use my Apple Watch. I liked them to establish baselines for new activities or trails but anything else was a hindrance. But even then what’s the point. Maybe I don’t think of exercise as something to maximize. Just has to be good enough. It many cases hindrance came from comparing walks. When it’s much better for me to just pick the walk that suits my mood, not the most strenuous.

Temporary_31337 3y ago

So the study says it increases activity. But it also says: “Effects for other physiological (blood pressure, cholesterol, and glycosylated haemoglobin) and psychosocial (quality of life and pain) outcomes were typically small and often non-significant.” so what’s the point of the extra activity?

fabatka 3y ago
My thoughts exactly. Goodhart's law and "cargo cult fitness" come to my mind.

ldes 3y ago

Impressive results, but I think it is important to keep in mind that most of the examined studies in this meta-analysis combined wearable activity trackers with an intervention. The effect of only using a wearable is probably much smaller and the duration of the effect is unclear. From the limitations section of the discussion: “Although this umbrella review provides strong assurance of the efficacy of wearable activity trackers in increasing physical activity, few of the systematic reviews and meta-analyses examined the effectiveness of wearable activity trackers alone. […] the multifaceted interventions yielded effects around 50% larger than those using wearable activity trackers alone.”

dmurray 3y ago
What's considered an "intervention"? If your phone or watch sending you notifications to be more active counts, doesn't every activity tracker come with that feature? I can imagine wearing an apparently-inert bracelet that gets your activity reported back to researchers at the university would have a smaller motivational effect.
- ldes 3y ago
  Indeed, almost all trackers come with notifications and in the study notifications are included in the wearable-based intervention. The result of 50% larger effects in multifaceted interventions versus wearable-based interventions is from a study by Brickwood (2019). In this study, they distinguish wearable-based interventions (interventions that included tools such as regular emails, text messages, online algorithms, or smartphone apps) and multifaceted interventions (using in addition established behavioral change techniques such as group or individual counseling or information sessions, financial incentives, or telephone counseling). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6484266/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6484266/
- Manfred 3y ago
  An intervention is a technical term for making a change to someone’s exercise schedule or approach.

inglor_cz 3y ago

To add my own anecdote. I am easily drawn in by the numbers game and, as a result, I started to walk even in conditions that would keep me at home several years ago. Freezing weather, rains, serious heat. My immunity has improved a lot, and I think it comes from the relentless exposure to all kinds of Central European weather. I no longer experience bouts of cold etc., and except for Covid, I didn't have anything flu-like even in winter, when there was an obvious wave of respiratory diseases all around.

vonnik 3y ago

This is a permutation of the Hawthorne Effect, which is individuals' modification of behavior in response to being observed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect Most effective if you are being observed by strangers, rather than your future self. Has ramifications for diet (food logs a very effective intervention, maybe more than any particular regime), and it strikes me that it's also part of surveillance states' playbook. Peter Attia cites the Hawthorne Effect here and in his podcast episode on good v bad science: https://peterattiamd.com/what-i-actually-eat-part-ii-ifik-2/ https://peterattiamd.com/what-i-actually-eat-part-ii-ifik-2/