--- title: Your Wearable and Fitness Tracker Won't Help You Lose Weight description: Researchers were surprised by the findings of their new study: that fitness trackers and wearable tech don't help people with weight loss canonical: https://time.com/4501018/wearable-weight-loss/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-20T15:19:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T00:42:25.173Z article:section: Health og:title: Your Wearable Won't Help You Lose Weight og:description: Researchers were surprised by the findings of their new study: that fitness trackers and wearable tech don't help people with weight loss og:url: https://time.com/4501018/wearable-weight-loss/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt095d219f70191fcd/6988a6c4e20a87d36ba927b4/wearables.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 7360 og:image:height: 4140 og:image:alt: Woman running outdoor. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Your Wearable Won't Help You Lose Weight twitter:description: Researchers were surprised by the findings of their new study: that fitness trackers and wearable tech don't help people with weight loss twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt095d219f70191fcd/6988a6c4e20a87d36ba927b4/wearables.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Your Wearable Won't Help You Lose Weight > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Sep 20, 2016 3:19 PM UTC  Woman running outdoor using a smart watch to track data. Woman running outdoor using a smart watch to track data. Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Sep 20, 2016 3:19 PM UTC People interested in their personal metrics have long flocked to [wearable devices,](http://time.com/4195987/wearable-sweat/) which track movement and sleep patterns, but a [new study](http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?doi=10.1001/jama.2016.12858) reveals they don’t seem to [help people lose weight](http://time.com/4194462/how-to-lose-weight-fast/). “The whole hypothesis was that \[wearables\] would be helpful, and they worked just the opposite,” says study author John Jakicic of the University of Pittsburgh. “But that makes \[the study\] even more intriguing.” (Jakicic has ties to Weight Watchers International and has received funding from wearable maker Jawbone Inc. for some of his past research.) In the [new report](http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?doi=10.1001/jama.2016.12858), published Tuesday in the _Journal of the American Medical Association_, Jakicic and his fellow researchers assigned about 470 people who were overweight into a weight loss group for two years. One was a standard weight-loss intervention group, in which people were assigned a low-calorie diet, increased physical activity and group counseling; the other group did the same thing, but adopted wearable technology six months in. The researchers included people between ages 18 and 35, an age group that would be more likely to embrace technology like wearable trackers, the researchers suspected. About six months in, text message prompts and telephone counseling were added to both groups. The people in the standard weight loss group started self-monitoring their diet and [exercise](http://time.com/4474874/exercise-fitness-workouts/?iid=sr-link3) using a website. The people in the technology group were given a wearable device to monitor their exercise and diet. The results were surprising to Jakicic and his team. The people using wearables still lost some weight, but significantly less than the people who weren’t using them. People in the standard weight loss group lost 13 pounds on average, whereas the people in the wearables group lost 7.7 pounds on average. Why the wearables didn’t help people lose more weight than the other group was puzzling. Jakicic and his team don’t have a reason, but they have a few ideas. It’s possible that when the people saw their physical activity throughout the day, they felt a false sense of security that since they had walked so much, for example, they could eat more. On the other hand, Jakicic suggests wearables may not be encouraging for the people in the study. “These are people who are already struggling, and already don’t like activity,” he says. “They look down and see, ‘I am so far away from my goal today, I can’t do it.’ It could be working against them.” The researchers used BodyMedia Fit activity trackers, which were a common brand when they started the study years ago, but many more wearable tracking devices exist on the market today. “We are going to get criticized for that, but at the end of the day, there are studies that show that after a few months people get bored with them,” says Jakicic. Jakicic says he hopes what people take away from the study is that there are other key behaviors that are important for weight loss that people should continue to focus on for long-term success, like eating well and exercising. “There’s probably a time and place for wearables, and there’s so much more we need to learn about them,” he says. “For the person who finds wearables engaging, absolutely use them.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4501018/wearable-weight-loss/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4501018/wearable-weight-loss/"},"headline":"Your Wearable Won't Help You Lose Weight","datePublished":"2016-09-20T15:19:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T00:42:25.173Z","description":"Fitness trackers may even be working against you, according to the results of a new study","url":"https://time.com/4501018/wearable-weight-loss/","keywords":["Exercise & Fitness","Weight loss","Wearables","lose weight","how to lose weight"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt095d219f70191fcd/6988a6c4e20a87d36ba927b4/wearables.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt095d219f70191fcd/6988a6c4e20a87d36ba927b4/wearables.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Woman running outdoor.","caption":"Woman running outdoor.","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/exercisefitness/","name":"Exercise & Fitness"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4501018/wearable-weight-loss/","name":"Your Wearable Won't Help You Lose Weight"}}]}] ```