Skip to main content

Study suggests your fitness tracker may not assist in weight loss

Don’t count on a snazzy new fitness tracker to help you lose weight. Sometimes they hinder success, according to Ars Technica.

The results of a two-year study of fitness trackers were just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The researchers found that overweight young adults who had started to lose weight and then added a fitness tracker actually put on more weight over time than did participants who stuck with diet and exercise without a wearable device.

Recommended Videos

In all, 471 overweight adults aged 18 to 35 who wanted to lose weight were followed in the study. The participants had Body Mass Index (BMI) scores from 25 to less than 40 and an average weight of 210 pounds. The study ran from October 2010 to October 2012.

During the first six months of the study, all participants were put on low-calorie diets and prescribed fitness plans. They also logged their progress in diet diaries and attended weekly group sessions. At the end of six months, all had lost weight, 17-19 pounds on average.

For the next 18 months, 237 of the participants were given fitness tracker armbands with a website on which to monitor their diet and physical activity. A second group of 233 participants self-monitored their diet and physical activity using a website, but without a fitness wearable.

At the end of the study, after a total of 24 months, many had regained some of the weight loss from the 6-month initial period. Those who used fitness trackers ended the study eight pounds lighter on average than when they started the 24-month study. Those who did not use wearables weighed on average 13 pounds less than in the beginning. So people who didn’t use wearables lost an average of 5 more pounds than those who did.

The arm-band tracker the wearable group used was a BodyMedia Fit mobile and web interface. Jawbone bought BodyMedia in 2013 and stopped making the Fit wearable and shut down the website in January 2016, according to Mobile Health News. The study was not a test of the specific wearable, however, but a study of the effect of wearable tracking technology overall.

In trying to interpret the results of the study, when comparing the addition of wearables to conventional weight loss programs, the lead researcher, John Jakicic, of the University of Pittsburgh told  JAMA, “I think we have to be a little bit cautious about simply thinking that what we can do is just add technology to these already effective interventions and expect better results.”

It’s possible some participants saw their accumulated activity data and took it as an OK to eat more or to make poor food choices. Some may have felt disheartened if they couldn’t keep up with their activity level goals, leading them to give up.

More studies are needed before making final conclusions, which is pretty much always the case with scientific studies and research. Jakicic said it may be a good idea to test different types of devices, but “Probably more importantly, [we should] try to understand for whom and when these devices are actually very effective.” Some may find fitness trackers helpful, but others may be thwarted in their hopes of losing weight.

Bruce Brown
Bruce Brown Contributing Editor   As a Contributing Editor to the Auto teams at Digital Trends and TheManual.com, Bruce…
Best Cyber Monday Smartwatch Deals: Apple Watch, Fitbit, Galaxy Watch
Best Cyber Monday Smartwatch Deals

Cyber Monday may be over, but the best Cyber Monday deals have still stuck around. Some of the other deals we've seen  have sold out fast over the weekend, so if you spot something you like below, snap it up fast. We've rounded up some of the best Cyber Monday smartwatch deals on brands like Samsung, Fitbit, and Garmin. We've even collected some Apple deals, but if you want to read about them specifically, be sure to check out our list of the best Cyber Monday Apple Watch deals.
Best Cyber Monday Smartwatch Deals
Apple Watch SE (40mm, GPS) -- $149, was $279

When the first-generation Apple Watch SE was released in 2020, we described it as the best Apple Watch for most people. While a lot of things have changed since then, including the launch of the second-generation Apple Watch SE, the original budget Apple Watch remains a worthwhile purchase in the Cyber Monday smartwatch deals for iPhone owners who want to try what it's like to own a wearable device. The smartwatch offers comprehensive health-tracking features and responsive performance, while also providing you with notifications from your iPhone.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more