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Home » Fitness » Study: Fitness trackers don’t accurately count calories – ABC10

Alexa Renee, KXTV 6:36 PM. PDT May 26, 2017

If you rely on your fitness tracker to help you decide whether to eat that extra slice of pizza or not, you may want to find a different way to count your calories.

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicinepublished a study in theJournal of Personalized Medicine this week, which looked at the accuracy of seven fitness devices.

The team found six of the seven fitness trackers measured heart rate within five percent. However, none of the fitness trackers accurately tracked the amount of calories burned.

The team evaluated fitness tracker accuracy by having a diverse group of 60 volunteers test the Apple Watch, Basis Peak, Fitbit Surge, Microsoft Band, Mio Alpha 2, PulseOn and the Samsung Gear S2. The study found some devices to be more accurate than others, and that factors such as skin color and body mass index affected measurements.

The researchers found even the most accurate device was still off by 27 percent when measuring calories, while the most inaccurate tracker was off by 93 percent.

People are basing life decisions on the data provided by these devices, said Euan Ashley, Stanford professor of cardiovascular medicine, of genetics and of biomedical data science, in a news release.

The issue is, consumer fitness devices aren't held to the same standard as medical-grade devices.

Non-medical fitness trackers should still stay within the 10 percent error margin to be considered accurate, according to the study.

The heart rate measurements performed far better than we expected, said Ashley. but the energy expenditure measures were way off the mark. The magnitude of just how bad they were surprised me.

Researchers don't know why the calorie count was so off on all of the devices but it's possible, since each tracker uses its own algorithm for calculating energy expenditure, that the algorithm isn't reading people well. Calorie measurements are based on people's height, weight, fitness level and other unique factors, which an algorithm tries to guess.

In contrast, heart rate is measured directly.

The research team is working on the next phase of the study where they will evaluate volunteers on their day-to-day activities instead of in the lab on treadmills.

2017 KXTV-TV

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Study: Fitness trackers don't accurately count calories - ABC10

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Home » Fitness » Study: Fitness trackers don’t accurately count calories – ABC10