Can Tracking Your Health Change Behavior?
If you want to change behavior, track it. One of the emerging trends in consumers is health awareness; not only on what we eat and exercise, but also on what we measure. Several years ago information on individual health has been mostly qualitative, but this is beginning to change as technology begins to track us to build our health profile. One of these technologies is FitBit. Launched in 2009, Fitbit is a flash-drive sized monitor that easily clips on to your clothing and measures your daily activity of steps taken, distance traveled, calories burned, and sleep quality.
To track health data, Fitbit uses a 3-D sensor similar to the one used in the Nintendo Wii, tracking your movements in three dimensions throughout the day. When you get home the device automatically uploads the data via a wireless base station (which is also its charger) into FitBit’s website, where you build a profile that shows your daily activity in user-friendly graph analytics. You can also set your own goals, and track your food intake to see how many calories you are taking and burning. Indeed, the company has claimed that their users walk an average of 43% more and lose an average of 13 pounds. Health tracking technologies are sure becoming a consumer trend, and we will update you as more technologies in this arena come out.
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Fitbit Inc. is a company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Founded and managed by James Park and Eric Friedman, the company is known for its product of the same name, the Fitbit Tracker, a wireless-enabled wearable device that measures data such as the number of steps walked, quality of sleep, and other personal metrics.