Fitness trackers not only encourage exercise and weight loss, they can also help lower blood pressure and cholesterol in people with type 2 diabetes and other health conditions, a new study has found. Photo by A. Aleksandravicius/Shutterstock.com
Australian researchers say your fitness tracker, pedometer or smart watch can motivate you to exercise more and lose weight.
In a major research review, researchers found that tracking your activity can inspire you to walk up to 40 more minutes a day (about 1,800 more steps). And those extra steps could translate into losing more than two pounds over five months.
“In the mainstream media, there can be a lot of skepticism about wearable activity trackers, such as whether they make a difference and whether they even have negative impacts, such as making people feel guilty,” said the researcher. senior Carol Maher. She is Professor of Population and Digital Health at the University of South Australia, Adelaide.
“Our review found no evidence of negative impacts from wearable activity trackers,” Maher said.
Devices are big business: Between 2014 and 2020, the number of trackers sold worldwide increased by almost 1,500%. In 2020 alone, nearly $3 billion was spent on these products.
In the new study, which Maher stressed was not paid for by any fitness device manufacturer, his team found that trackers have a significant effect on how much people exercise and a smaller benefit for fitness and weight loss.
“There were also clear patterns of change in other physiological outcomes, such as blood pressure and cholesterol,” he said. “The size of the benefits was sufficient to conclude that they are meaningful from a clinical perspective.”
To determine the value of fitness trackers, Maher’s team reviewed nearly 400 published studies, which included about 164,000 people.
Studies have shown that fitness trackers not only encourage exercise and weight loss, but can also help lower blood pressure and cholesterol in people with type 2 diabetes and other health conditions.
“Wearables are a convenient, low-cost tool to increase your daily activity and achieve modest weight loss,” Maher said.
While the reported 2-pound weight loss might seem insignificant, he said it’s important to remember that these were not weight loss studies, but rather studies that focused on physical activity.
“A weight reduction of 2 pounds over three to six months, which was the typical duration of the studies included in the review, is significant from a population health perspective, making up for about two to three years of weight fluctuation that we tend to see in the general population,” Maher said.
David Conroy, a professor of kinesiology at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, reviewed the findings.
He said the benefits seen in this study were not just based on fitness trackers, but also on behavioral changes.
“This means that the effects are likely overestimates of the effect wearable activity trackers have on behavior and health outcomes by themselves,” Conroy said. He added that the study doesn’t talk about how long it takes to achieve the benefits the researchers found or how long they last.
“Ideally, wearable activity trackers can be transitional tools that people use to facilitate a lasting lifestyle change that doesn’t require a long-term commitment to wearing the devices,” he said. “At this point, we know little about the timing or permanence of the effects.”
Conroy said it’s not clear how the tracking devices help users achieve beneficial results, but offered a few theories.
Trackers can provide feedback to help people monitor their progress toward activity goals and can remind users of them. Many have companion mobile apps that integrate a variety of behavior change techniques. These techniques can also help promote behavior change, Conroy said.
“Wearable activity trackers can be useful for promoting physical activity, but we need to be realistic about our expectations of these devices,” he suggested. “Trackers are just tools: they can be an important part of an evidence-based behavior change program, but they won’t do the hard work of behavior change for a person.”
Increasing your physical activity still requires a desire to be active, meaningful incentives to be active and an effort to translate the best intentions into action, Conroy said.
“Ideally, trackers can help consumers develop lifestyles that make it easier to integrate physical activity into daily life, but that won’t happen with a tracker alone,” he said. “Lasting increases in physical activity are more likely if the tracker is part of a thoughtful, evidence-based approach rooted in behavioral science.”
The study was published online Tuesday in the journal The Lancet Digital Health.
More information
More information on fitness is available from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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