# Fitness: Technology, Surgery, Fad Diets - There is no way to avoid the work



## David Baxter PhD (Dec 4, 2017)

*Activity Trackers Don?t Always Work the Way We Want Them To*
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS, _New York Times_
November 21, 2017

Comparatively  speaking, young people in the United States and England do not move  much. Studies indicate that most children reach their activity peak at  about age 7 and become more sedentary throughout adolescence. Many  parents probably hope that shiny new technologies, such as Fitbits and  other physical-activity monitors, might inspire our children to become  more active.

But a recent study published in _The American Journal of Health Education_  finds that the gadgets frequently have counterproductive impacts on  young people?s attitudes about exercise and the capabilities of their  own bodies.

The  new study, conducted by psychologists from Brunel University London and  the University of Birmingham, involved 100 healthy boys and girls ages  13 and 14 from two middle schools in England. The schools were far apart  geographically and socioeconomically, representing a broad cross  section of adolescent society.

The  researchers began by interviewing the young people and asking them to  fill out psychological questionnaires about how they felt about exercise  and their fitness. Then the scientists gave everyone an activity  monitor, which came preprogrammed with a goal of 10,000 steps each day.  The users? activities could be recorded on a ?leader board? shared with  friends, which would show who had been the most and least active.

 The  teenagers were asked to use the monitors for two months, and then  complete more questionnaires and participate in focus-group discussions.  During the focus groups, almost all the young people expressed initial  enthusiasm for the monitors and said they had at first become more  active.

But  the allure soon faded. After about a month, most of the teenagers had  begun to find the monitors chiding and irksome, making them feel lazy if  they did not manage 10,000 steps each day. Many also said they now  considered themselves more physically inept than they had at the study?s  start, often because they were rarely near the top of the activity  leader boards. Most telling, a large percentage of the adolescents  reported feeling less motivated to be active now than before getting the  monitor. (The researchers did not directly track changes in the young  people?s activity levels, because the study focused on psychology.)

The  problem with the monitors seemed to be that they had left the teenagers  feeling pressure and with little control over their activities, as well  as self-conscious about their physical abilities, said Charlotte  Kerner, a lecturer in youth sport and physical education at Brunel  University London, who led the study. The result was frustration,  self-reproach ? and less, not more, movement.

?*You can?t just give a child a Fitbit for Christmas and expect them to  be active*,? Kerner said. ?They will need educating on how best to  negotiate the features.? Nudge them to set realistic step counts and  other fitness goals, she says, and to consider whether they want to  share their results with friends. For many young people, fitness may be  better achieved in private.


----------

