Activity Trackers May Undermine Weight Loss Efforts, Says Study (sciencedaily.com)

schwit1 quotes a report from New York Times: Wearable activity monitors can count your steps and track your movements, but they don't, apparently, help you lose weight. In fact, you might lose more weight without them. The fascinating finding comes from a study published today in JAMA that found dieting adults who wore activity monitors for 18 months lost significantly fewer pounds over that time than those who did not. The results suggest that activity monitors may not change our behavior in the way we expected (warning: may be paywalled), and raise interesting questions about the tangled relationships between exercise, eating, our willpower and our waistlines. Specifically, the study found that participants who used wearable devices reported an average weight loss of 7.7 pounds, compared to the 13 pounds lost by those who didn't use the devices and only used health counseling. "While usage of wearable devices is currently a popular method to track physical activity -- steps taken per day or calories burned during a workout -- our findings show that adding them to behavioral counseling or weight loss that includes physical activity and reduced calorie intake does not improve weight loss or physical activity engagement. Therefore, within this context, these devices should not be relied upon as tools for weight management in place of effective behavioral counseling for physical activity and diet," said John Jakicic, the study's lead researcher and chair of Pitt's Department of Health and Physical Activity.

Comments

The Self Reward Syndrome

[Anonymous Coward]

"According to this app, today I burnt 500 calories more than yesterday! I can now eat a whole pizza guilt free"
Mystery solved.

Re:The Self Reward Syndrome

[William Robinson]

My personal experience is, activities in the morning are more effective for weight loss. I used to walk ~4km in the evening for more than a year, but did not result in weight loss. But when switched to morning walk, I could see results in couple of months.

Probably it has something to do with glucose/sugar levels, which is lowest in the morning. Probably, the apps do not consider some such facts.

Re:The Self Reward Syndrome

[quantaman]

My personal experience is, activities in the morning are more effective for weight loss. I used to walk ~4km in the evening for more than a year, but did not result in weight loss. But when switched to morning walk, I could see results in couple of months.

Did you walk before or after supper? If it was after supper perhaps you just convinced yourself that you worked up an appetite and ate enough calories to compensate for the walk.

With the morning walk if you walked before breakfast you probably didn't increase consumption to compensate, and if it was after you were probably satisfied enough to wait for lunch.

In either case the determining factor was more likely a mental one then a biological one.

Probably it has something to do with glucose/sugar levels

Probably not

Re:The Self Reward Syndrome

[EEPROMS]

I used to go to the gym 3-4 times a week and do all the exercises etc and lost next to bugger all weight but I did get bigger muscles. The issue is to lose weight there are two simple rules, don't eat anything with a high GI (carbs) index and don't eat too much. If you avoid bread and cakes, beer (I drink spirits now), snacks etc all things high in carbs you will find the weight just falls off. Also reward yourself at least once a week with a sinful dinner setting and that way you don't get bored. Yes exercise should still be in the picture but is a wast of time if you don't get rid of the carbs,

Re:The Self Reward Syndrome

[plover]

As much as this explanation appears to make sense, like anything in a social study, the results are likely virtually meaningless at the individual level. How any one person reacts to a tracker will not be predictable.

Success at improving someone's health will always be based entirely on the motivation of the person, not on which electronic toys they wear or which brand of granola they gnaw upon. Perhaps they'll find a correlation where buying Garmin branded devices is indicative of people who are more motivated than people who buy Apple branded devices, but that certainly doesn't mean buying a Garmin or an Apple will alter your chances of success.

I participated in a clinical activity tracker study earlier this year. There were so many holes in the testing methodology that I'm not sure the results will be worth the PDF they'll be printed on. Yet they'll be publishing results soon enough, and no doubt will contribute to the collective misinformation already encompassing the 'get healthy' rackets.

Re:The Self Reward Syndrome

[geekmux]

"According to this app, today I burnt 500 calories more than yesterday! I can now eat a whole pizza guilt free" Mystery solved.

Since a single slice of pizza can be upwards of 500 calories, this "mystery" is more of a math deficiency than some broken reward system.

Successful weight loss almost always comes down to simple math; burn more calories than you consume.

Odd how we allegedly need a billion dollars worth of weight-loss "solutions" marketed to us to figure this out, which given the financial reward to outright lie on surveys like this to boost sales, I wouldn't be surprised if these results are reversed next week with a study sponsored by the makers of Apple Watch and Fitbit. Obesity is a societal problem that has far outgrown any valid excuses, and humans are desperate to try damn near anything, sometimes with disastrous results (e.g. fen-phen)

Re:The Self Reward Syndrome

[TheRaven64]

Successful weight loss almost always comes down to simple math; burn more calories than you consume.

Which is a really good way to make yourself very ill. Hint: If the only thing that you're tracking is calories, then you're likely to have too much of some and too little of other things that you need.

Re:The Self Reward Syndrome

[geekmux]

Successful weight loss almost always comes down to simple math; burn more calories than you consume.

Which is a really good way to make yourself very ill. Hint: If the only thing that you're tracking is calories, then you're likely to have too much of some and too little of other things that you need.

I wholeheartedly agree with you. A goal of overall health which includes diet and exercise is the proper way to manage the human body. That said, respecting the simple math is a key component of that. Exercising for 2 hours every day becomes rather pointless if you "reward" yourself with an extra-large pizza for a midnight snack in utter defiance of simple math or proper diet.

I was also addressing the gimmicks and methods that are marketed today that seem to defy the basic common-sense approach to weight management. Get-thin-quick diet fads tend to distort this, or allow humans to use excuses to not exercise. The sad reality is I sometimes wonder if this is not by design, as it almost always manufactures a consistent demand based on feeding the roller coaster cycle.

Re: The Self Reward Syndrome

[parkinglot777]

Actually, it basically is consumed calories - expenses calories. Thays

It depends on how you define "consume" and "expense." If you define "consume" as eating, and "expense" as activities then it is too simple. Each person body could absorb nutrient from consuming food at a different rate. Also, each person could spend different calories on the same activity (metabolism). Besides, certain disrupt in normal routine of eating (e.g. Anorexia) could change the system (different metabolism rate) in your body. Thus, you oversimplify the way of how calories work with human body.

Re:The Self Reward Syndrome

[chihowa]

There's a pretty damn easy way to measure fat vs muscle and most people (especially those of the opposite sex) are pretty good at doing so. Even if you're a big lad who still has more visible fat than muscle, any increase in muscle makes a noticeable difference in the way you look and move.

A friend of mine who was pretty big and soft started climbing with me and you could start seeing the difference pretty quicly. Most people can tell the difference between big and soft and big and and strong. You also start feeling better, which helps keep your motivation up. Exercise is only part of a complete weight loss regimen, but it's worth doing on its own, too. It's been the best medicine for my chronic crippling depression.

Paid for by Weight Watchers

[justcauseisjustthat]

I love science, but in the next year there will be research that states fitness trackers change lives and make major impact on weight loss. It seems that research around human health and psychology are more prone to extremes.

I think that they are missing the point

[mark-t]

It seems self-evident that the most effective weight loss will be from people who have found the will to do so within themselves, but the point of a tracker is to *give* some additional incentive to someone who would otherwise not have done the work at all, or may have stopped substantially sooner, lacking an unambiguous, objective, and quantitative measurement of how much work they have actually done.

For truly fair comparison, one should evaluate how much weight people with a weight-loss tracker lose compared to the average person who may not even exercise at all.

Re:I think that they are missing the point

[Sique]

But that's not what that study was about. According to the NY Times text, 500 people were selected and put on a weight loss regime for six month, and each of them lost weight. Then they got split in two groups where one group keeps track of the weight loss regime via a website and another one via the tracker. And the tracker people lost significantly less weight during the next year.

Re:And of course the JAMA doesn't have an interest

[AK Marc]

The study was about people with "behavioral counseling [increased] physical activity and reduced calorie intake" with and without trackers.

Without, someone might push harder, with, they may quit an activity sooner after hitting some goal.
Or they are ignoring the counseling and trusting the tracker.

The study doesn't have enough groups to be "valid" to discuss the validity of fitness trackers.

Where is the group with a meal plan and a fitness tracker? Not there. How about a group with no plans, goals, or direction? Is the "control" group for weight-loss professional counseling, meal plans, and physical activity plans? How about a control group that's "lose weight, 'cause you should" and see how they track?

A control group C1 that has no plan or tracker, group E1 with tracker only, group C2 with paper plans handed out at the beginning and no counselor, group E2 with a tracker and paper plan, E3, with plan, tracker, and counselor, and C3, plan, counselor, no tracker.

Comparing all the groups across would give a better idea of the impact of a fitness tracker in multiple scenarios.

Re:OR

[ShanghaiBill]

Or those That would buy an Activity Tracker to lose weight are not as committed as those who don't?

Nope. The activity trackers were randomly assigned to study participants. They were not self selecting. RTFA.

Makes sense to me!

[Octorian]

Activity trackers are not a useful tool for increasing your amount of regular physical activity. That's not really what they're designed for.
They are, however, a useful tool for quantitatively bragging about your physical activity on Twitter and Facebook :-)

A couple significant problems

[93 Escort Wagon]

- The two groups both received counseling only for the first six months. After that, one group continued to receive monthly counseling, while the other just used a "fitness device". The way the summary (and the linked story) are written seemingly implies both groups were receiving counseling the entire time, which is false.

- The device used in this study sounds like something the researchers cobbled together. The researchers also "made a web site" where participants could review the data from the device. This does not really seem comparable to even fairly cheap modern fitness trackers, where feedback and data are easily obtained anytime the user wants. These guys really should have used brand name off the shelf commercial trackers if they really wanted to validate their conclusions.

All in all, this study seems to have some significant problems.

Re:Better gadget

[TheRaven64]

Sometimes. Most people don't actually want to lose weight though, they want to lose fat. If you exercise a bit more, you'll likely lose some fat and put on some muscle. Muscle is denser than fat, so your weight may go up for a little while, and the scale will make you feel like it isn't working.

Re: Works for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely fitbits cost more than 6 pounds in the uk?

Weight loss fallacy

[orev]

It's incredible that in 2016 people still think (and even do scientific research!) on the idea that exercise helps you lose weight. EXERCISE DOES NOT HELP YOU LOSE WEIGHT in any significant amount. Weight loss is at least 85% what and how much you eat. Exercise can help somewhat, but it has very little bearing. Exercise is extremely important for overall health, but weight loss is not one of the benefits.

JAMA study authors don't even lift

[xiando]

If you want to look better then there's one proven solution which works and has proven itself throughout the centuries since ancient Greece: Lifting weights. Can some "tracker" on your arm measure how much you lift? No, obviously not. These idiotic devices also supposedly track your calorie intake. If you lift and reduce your intake then you won't gain muscle and look like a skeleton. In summery, these devices are useless and those who buy them are wasting money they should be spending on gym memberships and protein rich food. Fatties should get off their asses and lift, not waste money on idiotic technology.