As technology has continued to advance, people have developed a tendency to use it to track their health. Whether it’s counting steps and calories or tracking weight, heart rate or countless other metrics, monitoring your health can be an amazing habit to have.
Most people monitor their health with a goal in mind, whether they want to lose weight, get in better shape or just generally stay healthy. One group in particular that often utilizes health metrics is athletes, who use them to track their fitness in various ways.
Sophomore Carson Kaiser is a cross country and track athlete at Kaneland, and he has already claimed an All-State title in his freshman year. Kaiser, like many long-distance runners, uses various health metrics to track his fitness.
“I believe that if you want to go on a journey of becoming more healthy, then tracking metrics like diet, sleep and more are very important,” Kaiser said. “With fitter people, like athletes, I’d say it’s just as important, but many people tend to overlook many basic aspects of health and hyperfocus on very small things.”
Athletes in particular have a tendency to overanalyze metrics like heart rate rather than paying attention to how their body feels. If paired with listening to your body, these metrics can be very useful, but on their own they can be misleading.
Outside of athletics, common uses of data related to health involve tracking calories burnt and consumed, weight and more. These numbers are very useful, especially if there is a goal in mind, like a certain weight or daily caloric intake. However, if these are overanalyzed, it can be harmful to the individual.
“It could lead to obsessive behaviors, like unhealthy eating behaviors or overexercising,” physical education teacher Thomas Fedderly said. “That is why I recommend talking with your doctor about it and having an annual physical and blood work done.”
If done properly, however, tracking your health can be incredibly beneficial. Many people see benefits in being able to set health goals using quantitative data and find it easier to see improvement by doing that. Being able to compare benchmarks of previous health to where you currently are is a great way to allow for healthy growth. While many of these metrics have some margin for error from person to person, they are useful when compared with one another.
“I use a smart scale,” Fedderly said. “I’m not sure how accurate the numbers are, but it lets me know if I am improving. I use fitness and diet apps to keep track of nutrition and fitness activity. They help me be consistent with my daily exercise and diet.”
In many cases, tracking calories and steps are the main metrics that people tend to focus on. Another commonly used metric is weight, and while there is a stigma around tracking weight, it is a key component to maintaining good health. Different data points, like weight, body mass index and body fat percentage, allow people to track their progress.
“Researchers tracked 1,042 adults over a year and found that people who weighed themselves once a week or less did not lose weight,” according to an article from the American Heart Association. “While people who weighed themselves six or seven times a week averaged a 1.7 percent weight loss.”
While being obsessive over weight is unhealthy, weight is something that should be acknowledged. It allows for something measurable by which you can track your progress. While weight doesn’t indicate everything about your health, it is a great point for comparison. On top of weight, tracking blood pressure and resting heart rate are also great indicators of health.
“People will get so obsessive over tracking health that any small change will drastically throw them off,” Kaiser said. “Sometimes, it’ll become so unhealthy that they will be more focused on stats than their actual health.”
One of the best indicators of health is how your body feels. While statistics are an extremely useful tool, they don’t indicate health perfectly. It’s important not to become overly concerned with specific statistics regarding your body. A good course of action is communicating concerns with a doctor or a physician, as this allows for professional advice on how to handle health.
