However, there is a tried, tested and true way to lose weight and you won’t have to shell out the dough for a wearable – just eat less calories and exercise enough. They all started losing weight. They participated in weekly health-counseling sessions for the initial six months and less frequent counseling for the last 18 months.
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After six months, half of participants began monitoring their diet and physical activity using a website and the other half were provided with a BodyMedia Fit Core, a wearable activity tracker worn on the upper arm.
Weight loss also isn’t the only endpoint that might change with a wearable device, he said.
The team conducted the study at the University of Pittsburgh and recruited 471 young adults, aged 18-35, all with body mass indexes indicating they were in the overweight or obese range.
The University of Pittsburgh research is one of the first randomised trials to gather such evidence.
At the conclusion of a 24-month trial, researchers observed that usage of a wearable device in combination with a behavioral weight loss program resulted in less weight loss when compared to those receiving only the behavioral weight loss program. And popular wrist-worn trackers like the FitBit and Apple Watch might be more effective than the device used in this study – although the accuracy of wrist-worn trackers is questionable. These extra steps and features may have influenced the desires to engage with the device, though an exit survey revealed most subjects wore the armband three times a week or more often.
“[People] should not be discouraged and this does not mean that those devices are not helpful in some way”.
‘Depending on the types of interventions, the results may differ and the study is a comparison of the device and human interventions.
The study noted that all of the subjects were young adults, so the wearables might work better in other age groups. The device could be synced up to their computers where they could see their progress – or lack of it – as the weeks and months went by.
Not necessarily. For one thing, people using wearable devices did lose weight, even if they didn’t lose as much as the people on the standard program.
Dr. Jakicic suggested the wearables might give people “a false sense of security” that they’re being healthy by tracking their activity. Generally, she said, diet is more important than exercise during the active weight loss phase, but exercise becomes much more important during weight maintenance. Patel also studies fitness trackers, but was not involved in this study.
Srinath also pointed out that most of the study’s participants were female and a majority of them were white.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who uses a Fitbit himself, announced earlier this month that such gadgets will soon be able to feed directly into NHS medical records, allowing Global Positioning System to see how much exercise individual patients are doing.
A handful of short-term studies have looked at fitness trackers, with mixed results.
After six months, about half the participants were randomly placed into a “standard intervention” group that continued following those same, proven weight-loss strategies. But another found that users get bored and abandon their wristbands after just a few months. People who did not use the trackers lost a little over 13 pounds (5.9 kg) while participants who used the trackers lost 7.716 pounds (3.5 kg).
For example, a person who was very goal-driven might find tracking their exercise regime very motivating. – but others might just find it depressing.
“If these wearable technologies help you to do that then that is ideal”, Jakicic said.
So should you bin your Fitbit?
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If you got a fitness tracker to keep tabs on your diet and exercise to help you lose weight, and were disappointed by the results – you’re not alone.
