[HN Gopher] Effectiveness of wearable activity trackers to incre...
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Effectiveness of wearable activity trackers to increase physical
activity
Author : lxm
Score : 59 points
Date : 2023-09-09 16:29 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thelancet.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thelancet.com)
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Meta study,
|
| > Taken together, the meta-analyses suggested activity trackers
| improved physical activity (standardised mean difference [SMD]
| 0*3-0*6), body composition (SMD 0*7-2*0), and fitness (SMD 0*3),
| equating to approximately 1800 extra steps per day, 40 min per
| day more walking, and reductions of approximately 1 kg in
| bodyweight. Effects for other physiological (blood pressure,
| cholesterol, and glycosylated haemoglobin) and psychosocial
| (quality of life and pain) outcomes were typically small and
| often non-significant.
|
| So not nothing but a very small intervention.
| tomtheelder wrote:
| Sources suggest 3-4000 steps on average for Americans, so an
| extra 1800 is actually a pretty big deal. 40 minutes of walking
| is no small thing for many.
| dundarious wrote:
| AFAIK (brisk) walking 40-90mins a day is the only exercise
| shown to increase longevity, and that in the US it is a
| target that is routinely not met. Sounds like a really
| substantial improvement (as long as the "brisk" target is
| also met).
| araes wrote:
| Surprisingly positive. Personally thought activity trackers might
| have a fairly short term interest effect, with boredom or
| laziness after several months.
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2589-7500%2822...
|
| "wearable activity trackers increased step counts on average by
| around 1800 steps per day, walking time by approximately 40 min
| per day, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) by
| around 6 min per day."
|
| "effects were in favourable directions (ie, negative effects
| suggesting improvement in BMI, blood pressure, cholesterol,
| glycosylated haemoglobin, and waist circumference and bodyweight,
| and positive effects suggesting improvement in aerobic capacity)"
|
| "strong effects on step counts at 4-6 months (increase of 1127
| [95% CI 710-1543] steps per day), [...smaller effect on] step
| counts up to 4 years (an increase of 494 [251-738] steps per
| day), [...another found] small but non-significant beneficial
| effects up to 1-2 years (BMI -0*21 kg/m2, 95% CI -1*06 to 0*65).
| Ensorceled wrote:
| > [...] equating to approximately 1800 extra steps per day, 40
| min per day more walking, and reductions of approximately 1 kg in
| bodyweight.
|
| My morning walk is about 40 min per day and about 4km (distance
| varies but I'm pretty reliably 6km per hour) and that works out
| to about 4500 steps. So 1800 steps in 40 min more walking seems
| to be a REALLY slow walk, less than 3km per hour.
| mmanfrin wrote:
| I feel this is a no-brainer and it's nice to have a meta study
| confirm it. I won't be surprised if we start seeing health
| insurance plans offer rebates or discounts to people who use
| them.
| codeulike wrote:
| I was really surprised to read of the positive results. Because
| I naturally assume that fads are just fads, based on marketing
| or fashion, and all the activity tracking watches that appeared
| over the last decade really seemed like a fad.
| Gigachad wrote:
| I feel like the gamification and reminders on the Apple Watch
| are not that compelling, but having long term history
| tracking of some stats actually is interesting.
|
| A few years ago I moved out of the suburbs and in to an inner
| city apartment. Decided to just get rid of my car and walk
| everywhere. I made no effort to actively exercise, but just
| went about my daily life. What surprised me is that since I
| went car free, my average heart rate has been constantly
| declining and my weight has as well. I don't follow any kind
| of diet and don't really do intensive exercise (until
| recently).
|
| Just getting rid of my car and walking around massively
| improved my health in ways my apple watch can pick up.
| el_benhameen wrote:
| Anecdata point: I was very active before I got an Apple Watch,
| but having the watch has increased my activity in two ways.
| First, it scratches the part of my brain that loves routines;
| meeting a daily goal provides a dopamine hit beyond that from the
| activity itself. Second, it provides an extra nudge on days when
| I might otherwise have said "ah, I'm feeling
| lazy/tired/unmotivated etc., I'm going to skip today." I didn't
| initially think I would care about the rings, but I think they've
| contributed to my health overall.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I replaced Strava (explicitly starting and ending my run) with
| aiming for 10k+ steps per day.
|
| I ended up much more active since I was incentivized to do
| activities that would incidentally increase my steps, like
| walking during a phone call, rather than having a rigid, more
| stressful "I am on a run" state where I'm fixated on my pace
| metrics.
| jupp0r wrote:
| Running is much more beneficial as you are in completely
| different hear rate zones as a simple walk.
| ls612 wrote:
| My Apple Watch isn't perfect but it's pretty accurate in
| measuring exercise nowadays. It was much rougher in the first
| year or two though, they have certainly improved the hardware and
| software.
| linsomniac wrote:
| My personal experience is just one data point, but an activity
| tracker has been an important part over the last 4 years of
| improving my health dramatically. 4 years ago I was sedentary,
| and was experiencing some pretty nasty hip pain that was really
| starting to get in the way of even my sedentary life (standing or
| walking for an hour or two became amazingly painful for days).
|
| This week, according to my watch, I have 870 "Activity Minutes",
| I use my treadmill basically every day, and I never would have
| imagined I would say this, but I enjoy jogging. My hip pain has
| much more manageable.
|
| Part of that is definitely the encouragement from the fitness
| tracker. Part of it is also using the data from the fitness
| tracker to adjust my activity and sleep. Part of it is my health
| insurance has a gamification where I earn money for activity, and
| also get to low key compete with others. I think it pays me
| nearly a grand a year for activity, all told.
|
| Honestly, I feel 20 years younger.
| caminante wrote:
| _> Honestly, I feel 20 years younger._
|
| Sleep monitoring is big, but did you lose weight and bring your
| BMI < 25?
|
| There's no drug that can deliver the same, positive health
| impact as going obese/overweight to "healthy" BMI. Losing
| weight is typically not about more exercise.
| barrkel wrote:
| > _40 min per day more walking [...] psychosocial (quality of
| life and pain) outcomes were typically small and often non-
| significant_
|
| Interesting if 40 more minutes a day walking didn't have much if
| any effect on happiness.
| noman-land wrote:
| Based on my extremely limited understanding, you need at least
| 90 minutes a day to see positive results.
| barrkel wrote:
| Well presumably if there's a threshold effect, +40 minutes
| should have shown an increase because it would have pushed
| people who were already walking over the threshold.
| boringuser2 wrote:
| The problem is the pace.
|
| Walking briskly and casually walking are very different
| activities.
| coldtea wrote:
| As if walking briskly would make people with shitty lives and
| situational depression (like, tons, judging from statistics
| and related depression drug usage) happy?
|
| Exercize is good for endorphins and depression, but let's not
| oversell it on inducing hapiness.
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| Walking at the sides of busy roads is very different from
| walking around a calm neighbourhood, or even a park, a
| forest or any other environment which is not high-density
| urban or industrialized, polluted and ugly roads.
|
| The good options are inaccessible to a large part of the
| world's population during work week.
|
| Therefore this study misses crucial factors and is an
| excersise (pun unintended) in absurdity.
|
| Still, I also see some positive effects from Apple Fitness
| gamification even without the watch, and I'm privileged
| enough to be able to reach a park in 15 minutes.
| foxes wrote:
| Wow it's almost like turning cities into a car filled
| hellscape was a bad idea.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Walking in American cities is awful, but if you live in a
| good country that limits vehicle access its super
| relaxing to walk around the city and see all the cool
| stuff going on.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Got one on sale after New Years when Garmin was clearancing out
| the old Instincts to make way for v2 of the same. My intention
| was just to be more aware of my activity level and at least make
| informed choices.
|
| The imaginary internet points have proven remarkably effective at
| keeping my step count up since then. I hate admitting as much,
| but I guess in this case it's a force for good?
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(page generated 2023-09-10 23:00 UTC)