Can Tech Help with Weight Loss?
Okay let me just start by saying that I am all in on body acceptance. I do not think that people should be judged or discriminated against based off anything aside from their character, their actions, and what they say.
With that said, obesity has been a problem that has been getting worse with more and more access to unhealthy foods, and less and less exercise in daily routines. Tech has also made it easier than ever to be lazy; if you uber everywhere and use doordash, you’re probably not very likely to get your 10000 steps in.
I have gained over 20 pounds since the pandemic started. My story is not new nor is it unique, in fact, I was reading a NYT article the other day that caught my eye and found out that I’m pretty average when it comes to my weight gain. But given all these shiny new tech companies that VC companies keep on pouring money into, I thought surely there must be some ways that tech companies are trying to solve this problem, turns out, there just might be!
There have been five big ways in which technology has been studied to help fight obesity (more studies are definitely needed). Ironically, the first one we are all too familiar with and might disagree at the get go: teleconferencing. While of course it is more effective to do in person coaching and classes, it is also fairly cost prohibitive for a large chunk of the population (which happens on average to be more overweight), and the study “The effectiveness of telemedicine for weight management in the MOVE!” showed that videoconferencing to help with coaching for weight loss is effective for people who actually give it a shot.
“Exergames” has been another branch of technology that has shown serious promise, especially for the youths. Something that pediatricians have been alarmed by during CoVid was the fact that when kids go on summer vacation they tend to gain a lot of weight and doctors (and parents too I’d imagine) are hoping that this could be an answer for them, and who knows, it just might be. I have seen two huge “exergame” crazes in my lifetime already, both the Wii-fit and Pokemon Go, the latter of which accounted for an increase of 4.6 billion kilometers walked alone in two months.
Related to that would be sensor based tracking, such as Iphones or FitBits. They of course make it easier to track your fitness progress, but they also make it easier to compete with your friends and “gamify” staying fit. There is also technology that is out, called lifesum, wherein people can take a photo of what they are going to eat to determine caloric intake, since journaling has been shown to be unreliable.
Finally, and the one I’m most excited about, Computerized neurocognitive training, which works a lot like cognitive behavioral therapy, which is something that I have experience with and worked for me. Pretty much, it is meant to get more to the root causes of why people eat, and help you manage inhibitory control. This is the one that also seems to have the most longest lasting implications. I, for one, plan on trying Noom to see if there is any truth to the theory.
Look, I’m not trying to tell you to lose weight if you don’t want to, I’m just saying that technology is making it easier to do so if that’s your goal. I personally do think that obesity is a serious health concern in this country (obesity increases the risk of the top two killers in the country which are heart disease and cancer) and this pandemic brought me right to the edge of obesity and I plan on using every tool I have until I feel good in my skin again.
