![]() "If we think about some everyday contexts where green and red are used, then we could see how diet and fitness trackers could implement colour choices based on societal connotations," Eikey explains. Eikey, who's investigated how women with eating disorders use weight loss apps, has seen the impact of before. Use of colours within apps like fitness trackers isn't new, and is something which researcher Elizabeth V. It’s subconscious, like traffic lights – green is go and red means stop." Naturally, I just saw red as being a bad thing. On the app it shows a green line when you’re under your calorie intake and a red line when you’re over it. "I became obsessed with how many calories I could – or couldn’t – have. "You enter your weight onto MyFitnessPal and then it calculates how many calories you should be eating per day depending on how much weight you want to lose," she recalls. In some cases, trackers are doing "more harm than good"įor Charlotte, what started out as an educational tool, quickly turned into an obsession she struggled to control. "When I downloaded the app, I was just looking for a place to track my calories, but until I started using it, I didn't realise how in-depth it could go." "I never had a particularly great relationship with my body, so I was always finding ways to try and lose weight quicker to make myself feel better about my body," she tells Cosmopolitan UK. It's an experience that 29-year-old TV producer Charlotte, who started using MyFitnessPal when she was just 18-years-old, relates to. ![]() "Fitness trackers can encourage a fixation on exercise and numbers, which can be very harmful to people with or vulnerable to eating disorders," explains Martha Williams, clinical advice coordinator at eating disorder charity Beat. ![]() The many benefits of using a fitness tracker, which include improved heart health and better sleep, are undeniably alluring – yet, in some cases, trackers are doing "more harm than good", particularly when it comes to how they can "trigger, maintain or exacerbate eating disorder symptomatology," as this 2017 investigation into the link between calorie counting and disordered eating suggests. In fact, YouGov recently found that 34% of Brits aged 25-49 currently use a fitness tracker, a figure that has increased from 23% in the last three years alone. It's no wonder then, that more and more of us are opting to use fitness tracking apps like MyFitnessPal or wearables such as Fitbit and Apple Watch to help us check-in with our fitness journey. That's when I started to question: When does fitness tracking go too far?Īs the first month of a fresh year comes to a close, the adverts encouraging those 'new year, new me' diets fade away, replaced by the 'get fit for summer' taglines we've come to accept as normal in the lead up to the warmer months. Physically I was in great shape, but I couldn't say the same for my mental wellbeing. Quickly I found I was tracking every mouthful, cancelling dinner dates with friends to stay within my calorie 'allowance' or going out for yet another walk if I ate 'too much' that day. So, when the outside world started opening up again, I was keen to make a change in my lifestyle and thought being able to track my fitness journey would be the perfect motivator.īut, it didn't take long until the numbers on that small screen became more of a restriction than lockdown itself. Like many people, I'd felt the strain on my skinny jeans after moving my body less and eating more during lockdown. I'd only started using my Fitbit a couple of months before that hot, sunny day. 'Just the sweet potato fries for me, please.' ![]() I was hungry, but all I could think about was how many calories I had left for the day. As my eyes flitted across the page from the veggie burger to the halloumi kebab, I mentally tallied up the calories. I could see them waiting for me to give my own. The waitress came to take our order and they all eagerly gave their requests. At our table, my friends and I surveyed the menu through the lenses of our oversized sunglasses. A barbecue sizzled in the corner, feeding hungry pub-goers who'd come to soak up the warm weather after weeks of being stuck inside. ![]() The beer garden was full of chatter and the air was thick with the smell of sunscreen. ![]()
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