Longevity-obsessed tech bro Bryan Johnson’s quest to avoid death hit a significant snag recently. Despite spending millions on an army of doctors and a host of controversial and sometimes creepy medical interventions, Johnson announced that he has been diagnosed with an incurable disease
Autoimmune gastritis means that his “stomach is eating itself,” he explained on X. Conventional medical science can only manage the condition, but Johnson plans to fight the condition with yet more experimental therapies
The news that a guy who has sacrificed so much money and joy in the pursuit of immortality is, in the end, just as mortal as the rest of us was greeted with predictable schadenfreude on social media. Some even suggested that Johnson’s obsessive fitness tracking might be to blame for his disease
Science is still unsure what causes autoimmune diseases like Johnson’s, and unlucky genetics likely plays a role. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t an ounce of truth to these comments
Experts warn that fitness tracking – even at a far less all-consuming level than Johnson’s – can often backfire, leaving people less healthy and happy than if they had taken a more relaxed approach to their health
Why fitness tracking often backfires
Everyone has heard the old business saying, “What gets measured gets managed.” It doesn’t just apply to business
“Trackers often privilege what they can easily count,” biotech expert Sahar Bakr explained recently on The Conversation. It’s relatively easy to design a device that can track steps, so many people fixate on managing steps. (Despite the fact that the famous 10,000 steps a day target originated from a Japanese marketing campaign and has no firm basis in science.)
But the metrics that are the most visible are frequently not the ones that are most meaningful. Your body might benefit from Pilates, strength training, or recovery more than yet more walking. But you’re too focused on hitting your daily number to realise that
Fitness tracking can also suck the fun out of movement, Bakr continues. In the end, that can result in people getting less exercise rather than more. “Research suggests that repeatedly failing to meet goals can lead people to abandon both the device and the habits they were trying to build. Enjoyment helps habits stick, while external metrics can erode the internal motivation to move,” she warns. In short, habits we don’t enjoy rarely result in long-term health gains
Finally, fitness tracking devices don’t actually know anything about you or your specific health situation. They are built for an average user who doesn’t really exist
“The problem is the body imagined by the device: often able-bodied, non-pregnant, already confident with exercise, and free to prioritise activity every day,” Bakr writes. “Some defaults also follow narrow social norms, often built around male bodies, and amplify questionable ideas about health and beauty.”
Despite these limitations in our gadgets and apps, Bakr’s research shows people often blindly trust the advice of their fitness tracking devices even when their bodies are telling them something different. You may end up missing out on much-needed sleep or recovery or push yourself beyond your capacities and end up injured
Your devices are messing with your sleep too
Some people obsessively track their sleep as well as their activity, of course. The evidence suggests more data often doesn’t result in better health there either. A recent Norwegian study found that, for adults who already report sleep troubles, sleep-tracking devices actually result in worse sleep
“Feedback from the sleep apps was more likely to cause stress and worry in this group,” study author Karl Erik Lundekvam commented. App-induced anxiety actually made people’s sleep struggles worse
Are your apps and gizmos actually making you healthier?
Thankfully, few of us are infusing ourselves with our children’s plasma or taking fistfuls of dubious supplements like Bryan Johnson. But biohackers like him, as well as the marketing efforts of a host of gadget makers, have inspired many of us to start more moderate regimes of fitness tracking. We count steps, monitor sleep scores, or invest in tests designed to track our progress or “biological age.”
There’s nothing wrong with pursuing a healthy lifestyle, and more data can sometimes be helpful. But not always. Sometimes our devices push us towards ideals that don’t work for us or are even beyond our physical limits. They can shape our behaviour and priorities in unintended ways. Often, they just stress us out to no good effect and turn our every nap or stroll into an occasion for joyless optimisation
With his vampire pallor, strictly no-fun lifestyle, and thus far less-than-promising health outcomes, Johnson may be the ultimate example of how extreme fitness tracking can end up making people less healthy and happy. But everyday fitness tracking has its pitfalls too. Johnson’s latest appearance in the headlines is a good reminder for all of us to review whether our apps, gizmos and targets are really improving our lives. – Inc./TNS
