Brooklyn-based boxing trainer Nancy Chen says her Apple Watch can increase the effectiveness of her workouts.
But it wasn’t until his watch broke that he realized it was making some unhealthy behaviors worse, he said.
“I really struggled with disordered eating, as I did on and off throughout college,” Chen told ABC News. “After not wearing it for about three months, I realized [the watch]It really helped confirm that I was over my eating disorder.”
Chen’s experience is not uncommon among those who use these devices, according to medical experts, who say that relying on devices and data points to some potential downsides.
Dr., an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. “There’s a disadvantage for some, and we find that it’s more prevalent in individuals who are truly seeking excellence in many areas of our lives,” Rebecca Robbins told ABC News.
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Many users can benefit from knowing their fitness level, sleep quality, and other overall health metrics.
Christopher Oakley, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, said in August 2021 that readings from his Apple Watch were able to convince skeptical doctors that he was having a heart attack, although his heart appeared to calm down between the time he left. He went home and was taken to the hospital, according to ABC affiliate WLOS.
Apple had no comment to ABC News when asked about its devices.
The company’s website stated that the Apple ECG app cannot detect heart attacks, blood clots, strokes or other heart conditions and that users should contact emergency services or a medical professional if they feel unwell.
While some of the technology companies behind the devices said their goal was to help their users get the best information about their workouts, they also stated that they were working to create a better balance.
“Being able to see what your body is doing and how your health is going. I think that’s just good,” Fitbit research director Shelton Yuen told ABC News.
Sarah Madaus of Brooklyn told ABC News that she first started tracking her workouts and health with a Fitbit.
“It made me feel accomplished for a while because when I was looking at my weekly stats I was like, ‘Look, you blew it,'” he said.
He later asked his parents for an Apple Watch, which he now admits has become a “suffocation” for him.
“It would be like: ‘Oh, you didn’t cover your rings today.’ And I thought, ‘You better hurry. I’m sorry, men can’t come to the party, can’t go to dinner,'” Madaus said.
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A 2017 study of college students published in the medical journal “Eating Behaviors” found that using a fitness tracker was linked to a higher rate of eating disorder symptoms in some, but did not necessarily cause these behaviors.
According to research, concerns about wearable devices are not limited to food.
In one case study, a woman diagnosed with atrial fibrillation developed health anxiety after running nearly 1,000 ECG recordings through her smartwatch.
“When you’re bombarded with all this constant information about your heart, your sleep, your weight, your fitness level… I think a lot of the time the problem is that we put too much of that understanding into it,” Dr. Tom Hildebrant, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Ichan School of Medicine, told ABC News.
Some tech companies are taking different approaches to audiences.
Oura Ring is worn on the user’s finger and does not have a screen that displays exercise and health information. Users can check the data from their phone or computer.
Shyamal Patel, Oura Ring’s chief scientific officer, told ABC News that his company’s devices and applications are built with user control in mind.
“You want to calibrate your activity goals or you can actually turn off calorie tracking,” he said.
Yuen also told ABC News that Fitbit devices also allow users to stop tracking certain metrics.
“We try to meet our users where they are so we can help them set and achieve goals they care about,” he said.
Hildebrant said people who feel overwhelmed by trackers and apps should stop using them for a week or two and see how they feel mentally and physically.
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Chen and Madaus told ABC News they were able to exercise better when they stopped using their Apple Watches.
“I think I was able to really focus on training and be very specific,” Chen said.
“You can actually focus a lot more on the mind-muscle connection and actively like how you feel,” Madaus said.
Fitness trackers may help monitor the health of some people, but may make disordered eating worse for others (appeared first on abcnews.go.com)