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"exec" writes:

Fitbits and Apple Watches and the like may have their uses, but they don't appear to be effective in weight loss.

I once received a lot of blowback for an Upshot article in which I showed (with evidence) that exercise is not the key to weight loss. Diet is. Many, many readers cannot wrap their head around the notion that adding physical activity, and therefore burning more calories, doesn't necessarily translate into results on the scale.

Well, here we go again because some of those folks also believe that fitness devices — Fitbit, Vivosmart, Apple Watch — must be helpful in losing weight. Unfortunately, evidence doesn't support this belief either.

[...] What was needed was a large, well-designed study that truly teased out the contribution of wearable tech to weight loss programs. Last year, the results of such a study, the IDEA trial, were published.

[...] At the end of the two years, which is pretty long for a weight loss study, those without access to the wearable technology lost an average of 13 pounds. Those with the wearable tech lost an average of 7.7 pounds.

It's hard for many to accept, so I'm going to state the results again: Those people who used the wearable tech for 18 months lost significantly less weight than those who didn't.

-- submitted from IRC

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