Technology is enhancing the way people engage in healthy behaviour. From exercising to tracking diet: there is a piece of technology to help you. This post will go over a few (of many) pieces of technology that help you stay healthy.
FitBit
At some point in time, the FitBit was not on anyone’s radar. Now there must not be a person alive who hasn’t heard of the FitBit. It is a band that you wear on your wrist to track activity. With eight different products, the FitBit is rapidly increasing in popularity. Depending on the type of band you have, it has a heart rate monitor, a GPS, and alarms. You can use it to track you when you are running, walking, cycling, and other activities; it even tracks and records your steps and calories burned throughout the day. Adding a gamification aspect to health is another trend that the FitBit takes part in with the fitness challenges that users can partake in.
My Fitness Pal
Put a goal weight into the My Fitness Pal app and it will tell you your ideal amount of calories per day. You input any food that you consume and any exercise that you do throughout the day. The free app gives you notifications to remind you to input your meals and exercise during the day. It has useful charts and graphs that tell you how many calories you consume during each meal and how much weight you have gained/lost over a period of time. It’s also useful if you are tracking how much of a certain nutrient, like protein, you are consuming in a day. You track your progress in terms of weight, so it is a great app to use if you are trying to adjust your weight in any way. Health apps don’t stop with the My Fitness Pal app. Search “health apps” in your phone to see hundreds of hits for apps that inspire healthy living.
The Polo Tech Shirt
This is probably the most intriguing concept that I have ever come across. Ralph Lauren combined its knowledge in fashion with the growing trend of health to create an absolutely incredible outcome. The Polo Tech shirt is woven with special fibres that connect to an iPhone or Apple Watch. It measures heart rate, breathing, calories, activity level, and number of steps taken… and it’s a t-shirt. Of course, it is $295 USD.
All I can say is that technology has come a long way. Hopefully (and most likely) companies will continue to expand into products that encourage healthy living.
