Do Activity Trackers Really Help You Lose Weight?

Are you among those young adults keen on shedding those extra pounds and think activity trackers can help? Then you are among the several thousand youngsters who would end up disappointed with what the activity tracker actually does. According to a new study, the activity tracker helped precious little in improving weight loss objectives.

According to researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, a 2-year study on weight loss found that people who did not use the activity tracker lost more pounds compared to those who used the tracker. The study as reported by CNN has been published in Journal of the American Medical Association; in the study 471 people were examined with about 75% of them being women in the age group 18-35 and all of them overweight. The study participants followed a diet with low calories during the initial six months of study, attended group counseling every week and were exercising regularly.

At the end of six months, all participants received telephonic counseling, motivational advice, text messages and online support.  Weekly group meetings were pruned to monthly meetings.

Simultaneously, 50% of the participants were randomly picked and put in an 'enhanced' group with a wearable activity device expected to help them monitor exercise and diet.  The device could also be connected to their personal computers so they could monitor their activity progress or the absence thereof, over the weeks and months.

About 75% of the participants completed the 24 months study without any break and the results surprised the researchers. The researchers noticed that the group which used activity tracker actually lost less weight compared to those who did not us the device to track their activity, reports bizjournal.

The present findings also possibly explain the indication in other studies that activity trackers have often gifted away or consigned to a drawer. The initial euphoria surrounding the 'magic' device wanes down and people who do buy the activity tracker tend to give up on them in a short span of about 6 months.