Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
According to new research from academics, fitness and calorie tracking tools may trigger a feeling of “embarrassment” in users who fail to meet their set goals.
Experts from University College London (UCL) and Loughborough University Employed Artificial Intelligence (AI) To analyze thousands of social media posts on X.
Their study identified 58,881 posts discussing the five most beneficial fitness applications, revealing the potential negative psychological effects of these popular devices.
These were then filtered to see if users posted “negative sentiment”, resulting in 13,799 posts.
Researchers found that users felt “embarrassed” when they logged unhealthy foods, felt “irritated” by notifications sent by apps, and felt frustrated when people weren’t able to meet their goals.
The study also highlighted concerns with algorithm-generated goals based on a person’s weight loss goals.
“These apps rely on algorithms that do not reflect the flexibilities and messiness of real life, or take into account individual circumstances and differences,” they write in the British Journal of Health Psychology.
They highlight how one user wrote: “If I want to reach my goal weight I have to consume -700 (negative 700) calories a day.”
They found that in some cases, these experiences led to “demotivation”, causing users to abandon their goals.
The researchers called for fitness apps to move away from “strict” calorie counting and exercise regimes and adopt a more holistic approach.
“Few studies have looked at the potentially harmful effects of these apps,” said Dr Paulina Bondaronek of the UCL Institute of Health Informatics and senior author of the paper.
“Social media provides vast amounts of data that can help us understand these impacts. By using AI, we were able to analyze this data more quickly.
“In these posts, we found a lot of blame and shame, making people feel like they weren’t doing as well as they should. These emotional effects can harm people’s motivation and their health.
“Instead of very narrow, rigid measures of success related to the amount of weight loss, health apps should prioritize overall well-being and focus on intrinsic motivation – that is, the inherent enjoyment or satisfaction in activities.”
She added, “We have to learn to be kind to ourselves. We are good at blaming and shaming because we think it will help us do better but it actually has the opposite effect.”
“It’s also important to note that we only looked at negative posts, so we can’t assess the overall impact of these apps in terms of our well-being. Apps may have a downside, but they also likely provide benefits to many people.”
Co-author Dr Lucy Porter, from the UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, said: “Listening to users’ reports on social media revealed that fitness apps can sometimes leave users feeling discouraged and ready to give up – which is exactly the opposite of what these tools are supposed to do.
“We know from previous research that feeling embarrassed and sad about ourselves will not support healthy, long-term behavior change – now we need to know how widespread these effects are on morale and emotional well-being, and whether anything can be done to adapt fitness apps so they better meet people’s needs.”