Health Apps Could Be Doing More Harm Than Good, Warn Scientists (theguardian.com) 93
According to several scientists, fitness apps might be doing more harm than good because they don't work but force people to focus on ambitious goals that they will never reach. Some are so appalled by these apps that they have called it "snake oil salesmen of the 1860s." From a report on The Guardian: Greg Hager, professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University, said that in the absence of trials or scientific grounding it was impossible to say whether apps were having the intended effect. "I am sure that these apps are causing problems," he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Boston. [...] Hager claimed the 10,000 steps target dated back to a 1960s Japanese study that showed there were health benefits for men who burned at least 2,000 calories per week through exercise -- roughly equivalent to 10,000 steps each day. An early pedometer was known as the manpo-kei, which means "10,000-step meter" in Japanese. "But is that the right number for any of you in this room?" Hager asked. "Who knows. It's just a number that's now built into the apps." "We have an incredible number of apps in the wild basically being downloaded by people who may or may not understand what they are actually telling them or what the context for that is," he said. "Until we have evidence-based apps you could amplify issues. I mean, imagine everyone thinks they have to do 10,000 steps but you are not actually physically capable of doing that, you could actually cause harm or damage by doing so."
Leave it to the scientists.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Without scientific study we can't say for sure that these apps are working, but we can say for sure that they're causing problems... Makes sense. As to pushing someone to walk 10,000 steps per day, if a person's not physically capable of walking 10,000 steps it's on them and their doctor to determine that. No app is going to force me to do something I'm not capable of just because it says on the screen that I should.
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No app is going to force me to do something I'm not capable of just because it says on the screen that I should.
If your liver is not working right, and an app advises you to eat certain amounts of certain foods, you won't know you were not capable of eating those foods until your doctor is telling you you have only 4 days to live unless you luck into a liver transplant.
You're right though, the claim "I'm sure they are doing harm" would require some evidence.
Re:Leave it to the scientists.... (Score:4, Insightful)
If your doctor hasn't already told you not to eat certain foods because of your liver, how does the app have any more probability of harming you than your own subjectively selected diet? If the doctor has warned you but you weren't listening, then how is the app any more likely to be harmful than your own subjectively selected diet?
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A lot of people don't have any individual to call "my doctor" and an app may ask you to do unusual things or things that push you past limits that you are unaware of.
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Fuck disclaimers. Stand behind your product or don't release it; I don't believe in disclaiming responsibility for harm when someone uses the product as intended.
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Fuck disclaimers. Stand behind your product or don't release it; I don't believe in disclaiming responsibility for harm when someone uses the product as intended.
If the product tells you to consult a doctor first, then not consulting a doctor is not using the product as intended.
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If your liver is not working right, and an app advises you to eat certain amounts of certain foods, you won't know you were not capable of eating those foods until your doctor is telling you you have only 4 days to live unless you luck into a liver transplant.
If you don't understand which foods to eat because you have a liver problem than that is the fault of the doctor and you, not your app.
Except for Untapped, the social network for beer drinkers. That app I'm sure has a negative affect on your liver.
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I need to stop at the pub on the way home to level up :-)
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If your liver is not working right, and an app advises you to eat certain amounts of certain foods, you won't know you were not capable of eating those foods until your doctor is telling you you have only 4 days to live unless you luck into a liver transplant.
You'd KNOW you were sick LOOOONG before you had 4 days left. In most cases, your liver would be enlarged due to inflammation (aka hepatitis) at the very least, which would be quite painful and you'd notice, but you'd still be a ways off from liver failure (and indeed your liver is resilient enough to recover from this point so long as you eliminate whatever is causing it harm.) Even if not that (i.e. you developed cirrhosis without painful hepatitis,) you'd have developed jaundice quite a bit before then an
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Tell that to the 100 to 200 people who die from accidental acetaminophin overdose each year in the U.S.
They get you off your ass (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientific study of the benefit or harm is good. No doubt.
But, from a common sense 30,000 foot perspective, if there is even the slightest effect among the majority of these apps of embarrassing you into getting off your ass a little more often, isn't that likely to be a net health positive?
Re:They get you off your ass (Score:4, Funny)
But, from a common sense 30,000 foot perspective, if there is even the slightest effect among the majority of these apps of embarrassing you into getting off your ass a little more often, isn't that likely to be a net health positive?
Damn it! 10,000 steps a day was hard enough! Now you're saying 30,000 feet is the common sense amount? That's an extra 2000-3000 steps per day!
Re:They get you off your ass (Score:5, Funny)
But, from a common sense 30,000 foot perspective, if there is even the slightest effect among the majority of these apps of embarrassing you into getting off your ass a little more often, isn't that likely to be a net health positive?
Damn it! 10,000 steps a day was hard enough! Now you're saying 30,000 feet is the common sense amount? That's an extra 2000-3000 steps per day!
If you start at 30,000 feet, terminal velocity will be reached quite quickly and the word terminal can be interpreted in at least two ways.
Do you even math? (Score:1)
20,000 additional steps equates to an extra 2000 steps for you? How long are your legs that your stride length is 10 feet?
They said "from a common sense 30,000 foot perspective". Feet, not steps.
I said "10,000 steps a day was hard enough!" Steps, not feet.
The average stride length is about 2.2 feet for women and 2.5 feet for men.
The recommended 10,000 steps would then equal 22,000 feet for women or 25,000 feet for men (on average.)
Taking the difference between those numbers and the 30,000 feet means a difference of 8000 or 5000 feet.
5000 extra feet for the men divided by 2.5 feet per step would be 2000 additional st
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isn't that likely to be a net health positive?
Answering questions like that is why we need scientific study. The answer could quite well vary greatly depending on the individual.
Also answering whether having an app tell you to get off your ass actually does get you off your ass will vary greatly. Personally I'm so contrarian I go out for a cigarette every time I see an anti-smoking TV ads. Except for the tiny guy in the wife-beater. That one's actually funny and somewhat true.
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implying increased general physical activity might be harmful flys in the face of logic
It flies in the face of American puritan mores, for sure, but not in the face of logic.
Given some of the recent research questioning whether the point of diminishing returns for general physical activity is lower than generally thought, and pointing out that not all types of physical activity is actually beneficial (housework apparently doesn't help much at all), and the known negative effects of a life of "hard work" it is reasonable to staunch your knee-jerk prejudices and look at evidence rationally... t
Re:They get you off your ass (Score:5, Insightful)
Answering questions like that is why we need scientific study. The answer could quite well vary greatly depending on the individual.
Let me help you with that. The science has been settled on that study long ago. Exercise and movement = good. It's right up there with the climate is changing, gravity exists, and the air is breathable. There's not been a single scientific study that says exercise and movement is bad and it isn't back by any medical principles either.
Now the amount of benefit will likely vary but that's not what was being discussed, what was being discussed is that health apps come with a default setting and that setting is bad and we need science to determine a solution to suit everyone. That, my friend, is absurd.
Also answering whether having an app tell you to get off your ass actually does get you off your ass will vary greatly.
Science can not help you there. But having the app certainly doesn't produce a negative result there either, and if you are really contrarian you probably wouldn't have the app in the first place.
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What it does do is allow your health insurance to charge you more if you ignore your monitoring device's encouragement to exercise.
Not in any sane medical system.
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Not in any sane medical system
I wouldn't argue that point. However, they're already doing it-- my major carrier employer healthcare plan for example, offers a discount if you buy a FitBit and meet certain goals with it. Goals that, according to some fellow employees who've attempted to meet them, are next to impossible to achieve. No one ever said it was going to be "sane."
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I know they are doing it. I'm just saying that tackling the root cause of the problem (greedy shits skimming money from people needing medical treatment) would be a better solution.
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You missed the point entirely.
10,000 steps is a huge amount for some people. I'm disabled, I can't make it most days.
Setting the number at 10,000 _implies_ that everyone should be doing it, which implies that everyone should be ABLE to do it.
To cut to the core of what I'm saying here: Many people see that number, see they NEVER meet it, and feel LESS motivated. People don't like failure--even if it's just a lack of "star" icon appearing on their app to remind them of their perceived failure.
Applications sho
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Scientific study of the benefit or harm is good. No doubt.
But, from a common sense 30,000 foot perspective, if there is even the slightest effect among the majority of these apps of embarrassing you into getting off your ass a little more often, isn't that likely to be a net health positive?
I agree. This guy's questioning the 10,000 steps metric. Fine. Maybe it isn't "best" for everybody. But I'm sure it's a hell of a lot better than sitting on your ass all day.
This is known as allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
Not built into app - built into HR's health plan (Score:3, Interesting)
It's worse that being built into a crappy little "health app" - it can actually cost you hundreds of dollars a month.
I was recently at a company where you got a discount on your health care plan if you walked 3,500 steps a day. With that in mind, I downloaded the related health-care app so I could reverse-engineer the web services and feed them the appropriate numbers each day to avoid paying more.
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With that in mind, I downloaded the related health-care app so I could reverse-engineer the web services and feed them the appropriate numbers each day to avoid paying more.
Are you boasting about committing fraud? And, if you happen to get caught then your insurance will be invalid, so if you need to use it, uoi'll personally be on the hook for all of the medical bills.
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Watch Big Bang Theory sometime.
We still have this stupid idea (encouraged by mass media) that the ER is "the place to go" if you suffer the tiniest little mishap. The fact that patients may now be required to pay a trifling co-pay doesn't really alter the equation all that much.
That moron Wolowitz also needs to carry an Epipen and Sheldon should have one in his First Aid kit.
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I would rather (Score:1)
I would rather people get their ass off the couch rather than continue to mold their cheeto-stained impression into it.
Even if the app is setting 10,000 steps as the goal, that doesn't mean you have to reach it literally today. That's why it's a goal.
Derp.
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How do they count "steps"? If they count left, right, left, right as 4 (as opposed to 2), then I can't imagine not hitting 10,000 in a day, and I sit on my ass for 14+ hours a day. I walk at a normal speed of about 2 steps (left, right) per second. That's less than an hour and a half of walking, total, throughout the day. I get about a third of that just walking to and from my car at various points in the day. If I go out to catch Pokemon, 10,000 ain't shit.
No change (Score:3, Funny)
I was fat before fitbit. Now I'm stylishly fat.
Get off your ass and you won't need an app (Score:1, Funny)
Quit blaming your "slow metabolism" for your fat ass when you do shit like vulture in a parking lot for a close parking space just so you don't have to walk another 50 fucking yards.
Tech too often a veneer for Snake Oil (Score:3)
Of course there's no science behind 95% (guess) of apps that really need science behind them. Science does not fit well into a devops release schedule.
I don't know whether to view this as the inevitable creep of snake oil into every market orifice, or tech giving snake oil a shot in the arm by virtue of people thinking "well, it took smart tech people to make this sniny modern 'app' so it must have the blessing of smart people."
Re:Tech too often a veneer for Snake Oil (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course there's no science behind 95% (guess) of apps that really need science behind them.
I want you to define what apps need science behind them. Based on the universal concensus of exercise / movement / not sitting on your fat arse at the TV all day = good for you I would say every single fitness app has science behind it.
The actual science itself is already done. Most fitness apps that I've seen ask for weight, and age, and then use generally medically accepted figures to determine target heart rates for exercise etc. Every other fitness app is nothing more than a tracker and is completely at the control of the person using it: i.e. no science needed by the developer. They don't care if you run 1km or 5km.
Quite frankly the entire premise of science hasn't determined a one size fits all approach so you shouldn't use apps is simply stupid.
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Of course there's no science behind 95% (guess) of apps that really need science behind them.
I want you to define what apps need science behind them. Based on the universal concensus of exercise / movement / not sitting on your fat arse at the TV all day = good for you I would say every single fitness app has science behind it.
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I think the GP used the wrong word, I think he meant apps that claim or directly imply that there is science behind them (when more often than not, there's none).
Most fitness apps are not even loosely based on science, even when they are its almost always using assumptions that are impossible to apply to most people, let alone everyone due to a large range of heights, builds, diets, habits, metabolic rates, environmental conditions and what not. Most of them are based on measurements that are turning out to
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Most fitness apps are not even loosely based on science
I repeat, define this. What science do you want? I see no fitness apps mention anything about targeting something through something else (e.g. weight loss through calorie drop) I see all of the do nothing more than allow you to track, provide you the opportunity to set goals, and provide indication that you reach a new best / personal goal. The vast majority of them will offer a wide array of different options for what to do, and few if any need "science" behind them since they don't specify targets for you
"snake oil salesmen of the 1860s." (Score:2)
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At first I thought similarly since the snake oil salesmen of the 1860s had snake oil and not apps, but then I RTFA and found the quote, "This field is currently in its infancy and can be likened to the snake oil salesmen of the 1860s,” he added. “Originally, snake oil was an effective Chinese remedy for aching joints and inflammation. Then it was ripped off by unscrupulous fraudsters.".
This raises the question of which snakes produce the most effective anti-inflammatory.
Overstated (Score:4, Insightful)
The example of 10,000 steps being too much for some people seems like a silly criticism. It's like saying just because some people are missing a finger, (5-fingered) gloves are bad.
Not to say that research isn't needed, just that decrying something for not being a universal solution is pretty weak.
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Except it is a solution. I have yet to find a fitness tracker that won't let you adjust your goals. What next, we shouldn't have defaults at all and leave people completely in the blind?
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> Except it is a solution. I have yet to find a fitness tracker that won't let you adjust your goals.
Try harder.
This feature was in the very first one I tried.
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And you settled on one to form your consensus opinion? I have several they all allow me to customise goals. Those that don't allow me to customise goals don't have goals to customise.
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For me, I learned how I can "game" the numbers. My key is to go for a 20-minute walk in the morning, and another in the evening. Just so happens that these would otherwise be times where I am sedentary. And, I have somehow made it 45 days of meeting my active calorie goal (w
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GOP system will link them to black lists (Score:1)
GOP system will link them to black lists
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Read it again. That's 10,000 steps every day for a week to burn 2000 calories. 10,000 steps is approximately 5 miles. 35 miles a week. So that's ~57 calories per walking mile.
Sounds about right.
sad sack (Score:3)
things are pretty sad with the world if we have serious concerns that recommendations to take 10,000 steps in one day might hurt someone.
The whole drink 8 glasses of water a day thing is probably more of a risky recommendation for certain pre-existing conditions, but c'mon. Any health / exercise recommendation should be taken with caution if your health is on the far end of the bell curve.
This is a ridiculous criticism.
Working for me (Score:2)
I changed my diet and started exercising in November. After losing about 12 pounds, I bought a popular fitness tracker in January to help me keep going. I don't use it to track steps at all. I track calories in/out, water intake, various exercises, and sleep. It's been quite helpful, and I've lost another 13 pounds since then.
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I'll never use a machine that tells me what to do. Use it only for keeping track of performance, never as an instructor.
^^^ this ^^^
I use an fitness tracker and an app, but I use it primarily for monitoring, logging calories in and out, and tracking results. The only "instructional" part of it I use - if you can call it that - is the "get off your lard ass, tubbo" reminder.
I for one vote (Score:3)
I for one vote we should suspend all exercise until we can determine a scientifically and clearly defined target for each person and get these hard coded in apps.
But on a more serious note, what a stupid argument to make. Just because someone doesn't understand the purpose of exercise doesn't mean actually getting some is automatically bad.
Could (Score:2)
*sigh* (Score:2)
"Health Apps Could Be Doing More Harm Than Good, Warn Scientists"
Or, they could be doing more good than harm. Way to take a stand, guys. ANYTHING is possible.
A dozen articles a day that contain the phrase "scientists warn" is about as useful as Outlook telling me that attachments MIGHT harm my computer -- every... single... fucking... time.
And are these the same scientists that once said I shouldn't eat eggs, and now they say I should? Or that I should avoid cholesterol -- wait, sorry, now it's only *bad* c
TFS is not very good (Score:1)
The "snake oil" quote is about mental health apps, not physical health trackers.
Personally I have tried and discarded Google Fit, but Strava is fantastic and has helped me lose huge amounts of weight and get fitter than I have ever been. For me it succeeds because it's much better at gamifying fitness and making it a little competitive, without having to front up to an actual race.
Well... (Score:1)
"I mean, imagine everyone thinks they have to do 10,000 steps but you are not actually physically capable of doing that, you could actually cause harm or damage by doing so."
Well they can just swing their arm while holding the device like I've seen many people do. They can probably do that from the couch while eating Oreo's too. Problem solved.
The Best Fitness App (Score:2)
The best fitness app is Pokemon Go.
Classic MIT problem. (Score:2)
So, some Ivory tower weenies are whining that something isn't perfect therefore it must be rubbished as a menace. Where have we heard this before? This should be ancient news to all of the peanut gallery here. Anyone here buying into this nonsense should just hand in your geek card now.
I'm the kind of person they claim to be championing and I say they need to STFU and try something else. They might suck at it less.
Walking is not exercise (Score:2)
If you are unfit, walking is a good start to becoming fit, but it won't take you all the way.
Fitness comes from challenging your muscles, from pushing your limits and from cardio-vascular work.
Strength can be built with resistance training (weights) and calisthenics (sit-ups, push-ups), but heart health only comes from cardio.
I dislike cardio as much as the next guy, the sweating, the panting, and the enormous amount of time it takes out of my day.