“Health And Fitness Data Is Useless”

Health And Fitness Data Is Useless | TechCrunch.

Data is hot right now. We generate tons of it, but most of it sits there, latent, unused and useless. This is particularly pronounced when it comes tohealth and fitness data, where we strap on ourfitness trackers and expect the pounds to melt away with each step passively logged.

But we haven’t seen a dramatic improvement in our nation’s health with the emergence of the “quantified self movement” and the pervasiveness of wearables. We still live in a country where two-thirds of us are overweight or obese and 80 percent of adults do not get the recommended amount of exercise.

We forget that data alone is not the key to solving America’s health crisis. Knowing our step count or flights of stairs climbed won’t change our behavior. However, data with context —data that is proactive, timely and actionable — gives us the opportunity to design our environments for success and can help enable us to reach our health goals.