Fitness trackers were very popular during the Christmas season last year, but new research suggests that people who rely on the devices to help spur weight loss probably haven’t shed much weight.
To better understand the long-term effectiveness of fitness bands for weight loss, researchers conducted a survey called the IDEA study, which stands for Innovative Approaches to Diet, Exercise and Activity. The study examined weight loss success two groups of overweight and obese individuals. One group was given fitness trackers to measure their daily activities, while the other group did not use trackers. Patients were tracked for a total of two years.
Fitness Tracker Study
At the end of the two year period, both groups of people lost weight, but those in the non-fitness tracker groups experienced the most weight loss. Furthermore, there was no additive benefit for fitness trackers at the trial’s end for other measurables, like body mass index, fat mass, body fat percentage and cardio-respiratory fitness.
Previous studies had uncovered that fitness trackers did prompt some short term weight loss, but those benefits may fade over time.
“Devices that monitor and provide feedback on physical activity may not offer an advantage over standard behavioral weight loss approaches,” said study author John M. Jakicic, PhD, of the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues.
Researchers were surprised by the findings, as they originally thought the fitness trackers would enhance a person’s ability to lose weight continuously over an extended period.
“We originally hypothesized that the technology would enhance weight loss at 24 months in our study. So, to find that it actually reduced weight loss success across 24 months was a bit surprising,” said Jakicic. “However, these findings are very important because they suggest that, just because in theory these technologies should help with health behavior change and improve health outcomes, this may not be the case for every person and under all conditions.”
His team concluded that although fitness trackers may not be super effective for everyone for long-term weight loss, they aren’t useless, as some people who wore the devices experienced significant long-term weight loss.
“We should not send the message that these wearable technologies do not help with weight loss – there were some in our study for whom it made a difference,” he said.