Fitness Personality

From eNewsletter 7/23/2025

DID YOU KNOW that fitness trackers are failing those with overweight and obesity?

Fitness trackers have become indispensable tools for some, but for those living with overweight or obesity, who are known to exhibit differences in walking gait, speed, energy burned and more, these devices often inaccurately measure activity.

Researchers publishing in Scientific Reports found current activity-monitoring algorithms that fitness trackers use were built for people without obesity. For example, fitness trackers accurately track those performing standard pushups, but for those who cannot drop to the floor and do them, but are doing wall-pushups instead, trackers do not count them.

The authors are in the process of creating algorithms that do accommodate for the overweight and obese.

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