Data Analysis of Fitness Tracker's Accuracy

My fitness tracker is an extremely important part of my life. Every morning I wake up and go on my Fitbit app and check my sleep score. How well did I sleep last night? How many hours did I get? Did I get enough REM sleep in last night’s cycle? I start my day with my tracker and continue to utilize it throughout the day. During my day, I track my runs, count my steps, and monitor my heart rate. I rely on it heavily to provide me with reliable data. My love for my fitness tracker has inspired me to research the accuracy of fitness technology. Throughout this paper, I will be discussing and exploring why the accuracy of fitness trackers is important to health professionals. Also, I will be discussing the leading fitness technology brands. Along with providing a data plan on how to determine which tracker is the most accurate. I hope this data can help health professionals make recommendations for their patients and help them live healthier lifestyles.

Context

The accuracy of fitness trackers is important to various consumers. However, the demographic I believe that can benefit from this data the most is doctors, nutritionists, dieticians, and other alike health professionals. These medical professionals are in charge of helping their patients set realistic weight loss goals. These goals can be achieved in many ways such as a change in diet and exercise, therapy, etc. A tool that could be essential for doctors and nutritionists to use is fitness trackers. This technology allows individuals to track various aspects of their health. A broad overview of what fitness trackers can measure are steps taken in a day, activity levels for each hour, vital signs, and sleep. If doctors and nutritionists want to add fitness trackers as a part of treatment plans the data coming out of these devices needs to be accurate. The accuracy of fitness trackers could add great value to different aspects of doctors and nutritionist work.

When helping individuals lose weight doctors often recommend keeping a food diary. Well, fitness trackers will allow them to not only track their food as well as the other aspects that fitness trackers can monitor. Dr. Seth Martin, a cardiologist at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland states, “It gives people information and empowers them to start making changes,” he says. “And often, their activity level was not something they were paying attention to before they started tracking”. So while fitness technology is not a magic pill for weight loss, it can help to motivate those looking to lose weight. Next, if the data coming out of these devices is accurate and reliable esteemed doctors could endorse these products and could ultimately lead them to be FDA approved. Lastly, fitness trackers could be the future of healthcare. According to Caddy, 'many experts believe this is just the beginning and soon our fitness trackers will be packed with an even wider range of sensors to collect data that could, potentially, save our lives, diagnose illnesses and keep our doctors constantly updated.' The future of healthcare is lying in the hands of the advancements of technology and fitness tracker data.

Needs

The needs of fitness trackers need to be understood by doctors so they can be utilized in the health care field. There are three leading fitness trackers brands in today's market: FitBit, Apple, and Garmin. Fitbit is an American fitness company whose mission is to 'helps people lead healthier, more active lives by empowering them with data, inspiration, and guidance to reach their goals.'(Fitbit Care Wellness Program) The average price of a Fitbit is $110.00. Apple is an American multinational company that creates, produces and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. In 2015 Apple launched its Apple watch which is equivalent to a fitness tracker. The average price of an Apple watch is $400.00. Garmin Ltd. is an American multinational company whose mission is 'to be an enduring company by creating superior products for automotive, aviation, marine, outdoor, and sports that are an essential part of our customers’ lives'. The average price of a Garmin fitness tracker is $225.00. All of these products are sold in online outlets and retail stores such as Dicks, Target, Kohl’s, and Walmart. All of these brands are extremely relevant and before assessing the data it is essential to understand the brands themselves. When understanding the accuracy of fitness trackers, if the brand is not relevant to the consumers, the data will be meaningless. Also, these trackers are easy to access and not excessively overpriced thus making them a product everyone can enjoy.

'The global fitness tracker market is estimated to surpass a valuation of USD 15.88 billion, attaining a CAGR of 13.02% during the forecast period (2019-2023)' (Fitness Tracker Market 2019…”, 2019). This increase is due to the continuing advancements of technology. The fitness tracker market is increasing in popularity in two different generational groups: youths and geriatrics. Due to the wearable feature of fitness trackers young adults associated them as a fashion trend thus making them want to purchase. For the retirement-aged market, there is a new trend of healthy retirement living thus making fitness trackers popular. These two groups are important for the fitness trackers market but for doctor’s purposes, fitness trackers should be targeted towards those who are overweight or looking to lose weight. The goal of these trackers to help those monitor their activity and motivate them to live a healthier lifestyle. Doctors and nutritionists could skew this fitness trackers marketing tactics to be more appealing towards those who could benefit from them the most. The more accurate the data the more likely a medical professional will be to recommend these trackers.

The brand of fitness tracker and consumers wearing fitness trackers are important needs that health professionals need to understand. The brand of fitness tracker is important when comparing the data between the top three fitness trackers. When doctors are making recommendations to their patients they want to recommend the brand that is trustworthy and reliable and ultimately going to be the most helpful to their patients. Also, it is important to understand which age groups would benefit the most from fitness trackers. For example, it would not be helpful for a doctor to recommend a fitness tracker to a patient that doesn’t have a basic understanding of smart technology. The data coming from these trackers are linked to smartphones, computers, tablets, etc. Consequently, the user needs to have one of these deceives and understand how to work it for a fitness tracker to be useful.

Vision

To determine the accuracy of fitness trackers I believe an experiment could be done. The experiment could then lead to a comparative analysis between the top 3 brands of fitness trackers. The experiment would be performed in a controlled space. In this space, I would like to have 100 diverse subjects do three different activities wearing the 3 different fitness tracker brands. The activities I chose for this experiment are running, biking, and walking. Before the individuals would perform these activities a baseline would need to be set. An esteemed doctor or nutritionist or an alike health professional would give a full exam to each individual to determine a baseline. This exam would show each individuals baseline calorie burn, heart rate, steps, physical activity intensity, and activity recognition for each activity they would be performing. Once the baseline is created the participants can perform each activity and the data from each fitness tracker will then be collected. Once all the data is collected a profile for each participant would be created. It would show their baselines for each activity determined by a health professional and then would have the results from the 3 different fitness trackers.

Outcomes

Once the data has been collected I would like to leave it in the hands of health and medical professionals. I want to leave this data with them so they can give accurate recommendations to patients looking to live a healthier lifestyle. With this newfound data, they will be able to 'prescribe' fitness trackers that will give their patients the most reliable data that is essential to improving their health. I also believe that this data can help improve medical practices. The doctors will be able to analyze their patients' health much more closely as fitness tracker data could be uploaded to their patient’s accounts instantly for doctor’s observations. Due to new and, ever-changing technology data and tests will need to be run yearly to be up to date on most accurate information. As a result of this data being collected, I hope doctors, nutritionists, dieticians, and other health professionals alike have a better understanding of fitness trackers and how to recommend them to their patients.