Do Fitness Trackers Really Work? Can They Really Help You To Get Fit?
In today’s world, we all carry technology with us everywhere and every time. Be it our smartphones, or smart-watches, or fitness trackers, or any other gadgets. These help in obtaining a huge amount of data over a period of time, and therefore it should be taken care of the purpose for all these data aggregations as well. But technology is also making us lazy in a way as well, and that’s where fitness trackers come in. Fitness trackers help us keep track of our daily routines so that we will be able to know if the activity we are doing is more or less. This will help us bring positive changes to our lives. It has been thought for so much time that fitness trackers are the first step in making us fit, both mentally and physically. But let us see how actually they help us keep fit.
The Truth
It was published by the Pittsburgh University which suggested that fitness trackers are actually not helping you put efforts into getting fit. About 470 volunteers who were overweight, decided to be put to test, where half of them were given a fitness tracker and the half with their own self-monitoring capabilities for their exercise and food. After about 18 months, it was found out that the group using fitness trackers shed just around 8 pounds, while the group without fitness trackers had shed almost close to 13 pounds – all being average numbers.
Another study that reviews several fitness trackers showed that people using Fit-bit also didn’t help as well. This is because the volunteers who signed up for the test didn’t even felt motivated to use the Fit-bit app along with their everyday exercise and monitor their progress. There was no such urge from the users to actually use the service and make them more fit.
So, Should You Use Fitness Trackers?
The one thing that came out of the above two tests is that – if you’re doing your physical work and also using fitness trackers, then these devices will definitely motivate you more to do better. But, the same thing cannot be applied to all users. Fitness Trackers don’t at all work for everybody, and therefore the result will vary from person to person.
Fitness Trackers should not all be taken as a holy grail of measurement scale. Hey help you identify various things about your body, but it doesn’t help you with any kind of strategy to improve the results further. You’re on your own. Using a fitness tracker is like going to a gym for most normal people. The first few weeks there is the urge and incentive, but that feeling wears off quickly. And that is the same with fitness trackers.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be seen that fitness trackers even do help people to get fit, but they are not for everyone. It should be kept in mind that people doing physical work will most likely get more benefitted with fitness trackers. But, when it comes to normal people, the results won’t be the same.
This article is published in collaboration with Consumers Verdict
