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Health Apps Could Be Doing More Harm Than Good, Warn Scientists (theguardian.com)
According to several scientists, fitness apps might be doing more harm than good because they don't work but force people to focus on ambitious goals that they will never reach. Some are so appalled by these apps that they have called it "snake oil salesmen of the 1860s." From a report on The Guardian: Greg Hager, professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University, said that in the absence of trials or scientific grounding it was impossible to say whether apps were having the intended effect. "I am sure that these apps are causing problems," he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Boston. [...] Hager claimed the 10,000 steps target dated back to a 1960s Japanese study that showed there were health benefits for men who burned at least 2,000 calories per week through exercise -- roughly equivalent to 10,000 steps each day. An early pedometer was known as the manpo-kei, which means "10,000-step meter" in Japanese. "But is that the right number for any of you in this room?" Hager asked. "Who knows. It's just a number that's now built into the apps." "We have an incredible number of apps in the wild basically being downloaded by people who may or may not understand what they are actually telling them or what the context for that is," he said. "Until we have evidence-based apps you could amplify issues. I mean, imagine everyone thinks they have to do 10,000 steps but you are not actually physically capable of doing that, you could actually cause harm or damage by doing so."
"Greg Hager, professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University, said that in the absence of trials or scientific grounding it was impossible to say whether apps were having the intended effect. "I am sure that these apps are causing problems," he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Boston."
Without scientific study we can't say for sure that these apps are working, but we can say for sure that they're causing problems... Makes sense. As to pushing someone to walk 10,000 steps per day, if a person's not physically capable of walking 10,000 steps it's on them and their doctor to determine that. No app is going to force me to do something I'm not capable of just because it says on the screen that I should.
Scientific study of the benefit or harm is good. No doubt.
But, from a common sense 30,000 foot perspective, if there is even the slightest effect among the majority of these apps of embarrassing you into getting off your ass a little more often, isn't that likely to be a net health positive?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
I was fat before fitbit. Now I'm stylishly fat.
The example of 10,000 steps being too much for some people seems like a silly criticism. It's like saying just because some people are missing a finger, (5-fingered) gloves are bad.
Not to say that research isn't needed, just that decrying something for not being a universal solution is pretty weak.
Of course there's no science behind 95% (guess) of apps that really need science behind them.
I want you to define what apps need science behind them. Based on the universal concensus of exercise / movement / not sitting on your fat arse at the TV all day = good for you I would say every single fitness app has science behind it.
The actual science itself is already done. Most fitness apps that I've seen ask for weight, and age, and then use generally medically accepted figures to determine target heart rates for exercise etc. Every other fitness app is nothing more than a tracker and is completely at the control of the person using it: i.e. no science needed by the developer. They don't care if you run 1km or 5km.
Quite frankly the entire premise of science hasn't determined a one size fits all approach so you shouldn't use apps is simply stupid.