I blame the baby boomers (a group to which I actually belong). For whatever reasons, the boomers are a generation unwilling to go gently into old age. So, we’re looking to maximize our level of health and wellness (within reason—I refuse to give up ice cream) and to preserve that level for as long as possible. Talking about a “level” of something automatically implies measuring that something, and I predict “health measurement” is about to become a mainstream interest in the United States.
There have always been people who have obsessively recorded their daily habits: athletes, those who suffer from chronic disease such as migraines or diabetes, and various other oddballs who keep detailed personal logs about eating, exercise, sleep, mood and even elimination. Those people had a strong reason (or general craziness) that compelled them to write down every detail, in hopes of understanding more about what their bodies were doing in response to these activities. For the more ordinary person, however, the amount of effort required by documentation far outweighed any perceived potential benefit (despite, for example, the fact that detailed logging is one of the best ways to achieve health-related goals like weight loss).
The reason I predict that measuring your overall health is about to go mainstream is the advent of technology that eliminates the drudgery of logging health information, and—dare I say it—even makes tracking that information fun and something you want to share with your friends.
Don’t believe me? We were at a social event last month, and my wife had a conversation with an older woman who, in the midst of their conversation, reached into her silk blouse and pulled out her Fitbit to show my wife (it was clipped to her bra strap). A Fitbit is a little device (about the size of a disposable cigarette lighter), which tracks your activity (including sleep). My wife found it interesting enough to mention to me, and noted that it connected with a Web-based service (www.MyFitnessPal.com) the woman uses to log what she eats.
And that’s how I ended up buying my wife a Fitbit (www.fitbit.com). Technically, I bought her a Fitbit Ultra wireless tracker. The device contains a wireless transmitter, an accelerometer to measure changes in speed and direction, and an altimeter to measure changes in altitude (an older model, the Fitbit Classic, lacks this feature). Combined with some software, this allows the Fitbit to tell you how many steps you’ve taken, how far you’ve walked, how many calories you’ve burned, how many floors you’ve climbed and even when (and how well) you slept. Amazingly, this tiny technological miracle only costs $99.95 (and you can get it for even less at Amazon.com).
The device comes with a little combination charger/receiver that plugs into the USB port on your computer. Walk within about 15 feet of the receiver, and the Fitbit automatically uploads your data securely into the cloud. You access your historical data (again, securely) via the Fitbit website, which conspicuously states: “Your data belongs to you. Fitbit will always offer a free account.” And of course, there is a free app for your iPhone or Android that lets you do the same thing on the small screen.
The Fitbit displays steps/distance/calories/floors, so you can always pull it out of your pocket (or blouse) and see where your numbers stand. It also displays a flower, which grows and shrinks according to your recent activity, a simple “game” feature my wife has really come to like.
My wife is a nurse, and spends most of her workday on her feet. For her, the question has always been, “Given that I walk around all day, why aren’t I rail-thin?” The Fitbit confirms that she does average more than 10,000 steps per day at work, which means that our family diet is probably at fault. If only there were a Fitbit for your calorie intake.
To me, the most amazing thing is that the Fitbit can track sleep patterns. When my wife goes to bed, she puts her Fitbit in a wristband that comes with the device, and puts the wristband on the wrist of her non-dominant (left) hand. Fitbit analyzes the motion sensor (accelerometer) data uploaded from the Fitbit to tell when you went to bed, how quickly you fell asleep, whether you woke (or got up) during the night, and when you got up. Based on her experience, the device appears to do a good job of telling when she’s had a restful night (or not).
The net effect, says my wife, is that she’s encouraged to walk more, making sure she does at least 10,000 steps each day, even on the weekends. And, it helps remind her (and me) that we can both eat calories much faster than we can burn them off. Based on her experience, and some co-workers who also have Fitbits, I’m planning to get one myself, along with a wireless scale and maybe even a wireless-enabled blood pressure monitor (high blood pressure runs in my family, and I take medication for it). The real point is that these devices eliminate the effort of collecting data while giving you the benefit of the data itself.
The Fitbit is just part of the world of the “quantified self”: self-knowledge through numbers. The term was coined in a July 2009 Wired magazine article by Gary Wolf, and the movement (if it can be called that) has a website at www.quantifiedself.com. I attended its Bay Area “Show and Tell” events in February and March, and heard short presentations from a variety of people, including a man who tracked his cardiac arrhythmia and diet to see if going vegan would help his condition, one of two identical twins who is using data to explain exactly why she is 40 pounds lighter than her twin, and two different (non-diabetic) people who wear the Dex (www.dexcom.com) real-time glucose monitor as part of their self-tracking prototcol talking about what they’ve learned. Fascinating stuff, about which I’ll be writing more in future columns.
