Fitness Trackers may not help weight loss read more at here www.spinonews.com/index.php/item/951-fitness-trackers-may-not-help-weight-loss

Fitness trackers remain wildly popular, but do they make us fit? Maybe not. Fitness trackers are marketed as a way to increase your activity, but it turns out they may not help users keep weight off in the long term.

The results of a 2 year study of fitness trackers were 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.

Around 470 people in the study were put on a low-calorie diet and asked to exercise more. They all started losing weight. Six months in, half the group members started self-reporting their diet and exercise. The other half were given fitness trackers to monitor their activity.

After two years, both groups were equally active. But the people with the fitness trackers lost less weight.

We know that monitoring activity behavior, and diet, is very important to weight management success, so making it easier to do that and in real-time should in theory improve success. If these wearable technologies help you to do that then that is perfect, “However, you need to use the technology in a way that can really help you.” said lead author John M. Jakicic of the University of Pittsburgh department of health and physical activity.

 

The Study on Fitness trackers was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).