is a senior reporter focusing on wearables, health tech, and more with 13 years of experience. Before coming to The Verge, she worked for Gizmodo and PC Magazine.
I keep hearing the same sentence repeating in my head.
“My vision is that every American is wearing a wearable within four years.”
RFK Jr., our current secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said this at a congressional hearing at the end of June. Wearables, he said, are key to the MAHA — Make America Healthy Again — agenda. Kennedy positioned wearables for Americans as a means of “taking control” or “taking responsibility” over their health by monitoring how their lifestyle impacts their metrics. In the hearing, he also cited that his friends had shed pounds and “lost their diabetes diagnosis” thanks to devices like continuous glucose monitors (CGMs).
I’m a wearables expert. I obviously don’t hate these devices. My problem with Kennedy’s “wearable for every American” vision is that it lends credence to the idea that everyone benefits from wearable technology. It’s not that simple.
I started wearing a Fitbit in 2014 to lose weight. I’d mysteriously gained 40 pounds in six months. I started running. Dieting. Obsessively tracking my steps, hitting 10,000 to 15,000 a day, rain or shine. I ate as few as 800 calories while logging 15,000 steps daily — for me, roughly 7.5 miles of walking. The promise of all this data, and what Kennedy is touting, is that people will have actionable data to improve their health. I had a ton of data. I could see things weren’t adding up. But the way these products and their apps are designed, I didn’t know how to “take control” of my health. Instead, I continued to gain weight.
I cried a lot during that time. So did my mom, who took my sudden aversion to carbohydrates as a personal offense. (How can you not eat bap? Bap is life!!) It didn’t matter that I improved at running or that I measured everything with a food scale. Each time I went to my doctors, I’d show them my Fitbit data and beg to be taken seriously. My doctors didn’t know what to do with what they were being shown. I also didn’t know how to communicate what I was seeing effectively. Instead, they suggested everything from “you must become a vegan” to “people with slow metabolisms just have to try harder.” By 2016, I’d put on another 20 pounds and, after three years, was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome — a hormonal condition that often causes weight gain and insulin resistance.
Related The unexpected health impacts of wearable tech
Wearables helped me realize something was off, but it was a bumpy ride getting to an answer. That’s been true of my overall experience. Sure, this tech helped improve aspects of my health. I’m a much more active person. I went from being unable to run a mile to racing two half-marathons, a handful of 10Ks, and several 5Ks. My sleep is more regular. I went from being a night owl to an early riser. I’ve watched my resting heart rate decrease from around 75 beats per minute while sleeping to around 55 bpm. My cholesterol is lower. My weight has yo-yoed, but overall, I’ve been able to maintain a 25-pound weight loss from the 60 pounds I gained from PCOS. And, I’ve put on more muscle.
What I haven’t shared quite as publicly is that these improvements came at a heavy cost to my mental health.
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