I keep repeating the same sentence in my head.
“My vision is that every American is wearing wearing within four years.”
RFK Junior, our current secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said this at a Congress hearing in late June. Velables, he said, are important for Maha – make America healthy – agenda. Kennedy monitored “taking responsibility” on his health as a means of “taking control” or “responsibility” for Americans, how their lifestyle affects their matrix. In the hearing, he also quoted that his friends had shed pounds and “Lost your diabetic diagnosisThanks to devices such as continuous glucose monitor (CGM).
I am a wearable specialist. I clearly do not hate these devices. My problem with Kennedy’s “wearable” vision is that it assures this idea that Everyone Benefits from wearetable technology. This is not so easy.
I started wearing a fitbit in 2014 to lose weight. I mysteriously receive 40 pounds in six months. I started running. Diet. Clearly keeping an eye on my footsteps, 10,000 to 15,000 per day, rain or shine. I ate something as 800 calories by logging at 15,000 steps per day – for me, about 7.5 miles. The promise of all this data, and the Kennedy that is avoiding is that people will have actionable data to improve their health. I had a ton data. I could see that things were not adding. But the way these products and their apps are designed, I did not know how to “control” my health. Instead, I continued to get weight.
I cried a lot during that time. So what my mother, who took my sudden rescue for carbohydrates as a personal crime. (How can’t you eat Baptism, Baptism What is life !!) It did not matter whether I improved running or I measured everything with the scale of food. Every time I went to my doctors, I will show them my fitbit data and beg them to take seriously. My doctors did not know what they were being shown, what to do with it. I did not even know what I was looking effectively. Instead, he suggested everything from “you should be a vegetarian”. People with slow metabolism just have to make difficult efforts. ” By 2016, I used to put another 20 pounds and three years later, was diagnosed polycystic ovary syndrome – A hormonal condition that often causes weight gain and insulin resistance.
Wearables helped me feel that something was closed, but it was a bumpy ride for a answer. This is true about my overall experience. Sure, it helped improve this technique aspect Of my health. I am a very active person. I went away from being unable to run a mile to two half-half-marathan, a handful of 10ks, and several 5ks. My sleep is more regular. I went to an early riser from being an owl one night. I have seen a decrease in my relaxing heart rate from about 75 beats per minute while sleeping at about 55 bpm. My cholesterol is less. My weight is Yo-Yo, but overall, I am able to maintain weight loss of 60 pounds from 60 pounds obtained from PCOS. And, I have put more muscles.
Whatever I have not shared publicly, these improvements came to a huge cost for my mental health.
My first three years with Wearbals ruined my relationship with food. Despite paying attention to my data, I did not get much through the results. There was not even a ton of guidance on how to apply my data learning in a healthy way. I ended hyperfixing when I tried anything helping to reach my goal. I ended with disorganized eating habits. Food logging is also a major feature in these wearing apps, so I carefully weighed and logged into everything I ate for years. If I also had more than 15 calories than the budget, I will go for a five -minute run around the block to burn 50 calories and take myself back. I avoided social outing, because while eating outside, my calorie logs were not guaranteed to be accurate. If I was not progressing enough, I would leave food and punish myself. According to my doctor, I started showing light signs of both of them Orthorexia nervosa And anorexia.
I also started developing concern about my ongoing performance. If I was not improving my VO2 Max or miles, I was failing. It did not matter that I had gone to record a personal best of 8 minutes, 45 seconds at a distance of 16 minutes. At any time I got injured, my number will decrease, and I will feel completely like failure. When my father died, I got trapped in a funeral house in Korean rural areas, pacing around in circles so that I would not lose my steps. The irony is that in a bid to please my wearer lidy, I have injured myself many times through the overalls in the last decade.
I am fine now, thank you for a lot of work in therapy and the help of my loved ones. But healing is not a kind of thing. Twenty five percent time, I use wearbals in a very appropriate way. I deliberately break the other five percent of the time, whenever old habits back on their ugly head.
I do not have a unique experience. Many studies and reports have found that wearbals can increase Health WorryIn fact, when a friend or acquaintance gets a new wearer, I usually get one of two types of messages. The first is an obsessive recurrence of their data and in all those ways they monitor food intake. Other anxious texts are a hurry, asking if their low HRV, heart rate, or some other metrics are a sign that they are going to die. Most of these messages come from those who have recently scared health, and I usually teach the next hour how to interpret their basic data in less absolute terms. And therein lies the rub. These devices overloaded people in my life with much information, but not enough reference. If they are struggling to understand this, then one can effectively “take control of their health”?
There has never been done, nor will it never be, a shape-fit-all solution.
There has never been done, nor will it never be, a shape-fit-all solution. So I suspect that Kennedy’s vision is even more possible. Doctors Do not always know how to explain the wearable dataNot only this, it will be a huge venture to give every American weary. There are dozens, if not hundreds, products on the market, and all health requirements are unique. Will the government subsidize cost? Health insurance companies, FSA and HSAS where are this picture fit in this picture? So far, we have heard from Kennedy that HHS has planned to launch “one of the largest advertising campaigns in HHS history” to promote wearable use.
But even though Kennedy was meant to solve this logistics nightmare, I take the issue of wearbals as an essential component in any health journey with framing. You risk creating scenarios where insurance companies use wearballs as a means of reducing or enhancing the premium, such as how some car insurance providers use Telematics device to monitor the driving of your customers In return for discount. It feels good in theory, but it also opens the door of discrimination. Some, but not all, diseases can be treated or prevented through lifestyle changes.
Not everyone will experience the deep side of this technique as I have. But I know that many, and many more willpower. Some, like me, will eventually find a healthy balance. For others, the healthy job they could do is Avoid Vierables.
