Your fitness app may actually be hurting your health more than helping it heres how

Is your phone sabotaging your gains?New research suggests that popular calorie-counting and workout-tracking apps may be doing more harm than good, leaving users feeling frustrated rather than fired up to reach their goals.That’s bad news for the 92 million Americans who rely on these platforms to track every bite and bench press, raising questions about whether the tech meant to help them is actually holding them back.In the study, researchers at University College London and Loughborough University analyzed 58,881 posts on X (formerly Twitter) about five popular fitness apps.Using artificial intelligence, the team sifted through the data and identified 13,799 posts where users expressed negative feelings about the programs.“In these posts, we found a lot of blame and shame, with people feeling they were not doing as well as they should be,” senior author Dr.

Paulina Bondaronek said in a press release.“These emotional effects may end up harming people’s motivation and their health.”Bondaronek and her colleagues sorted the posts into broad themes to get a clearer picture of users’ struggles.

They found that many expressed frustration at how complicated it was to track calories, with some saying the platforms weren’t personalized enough to be accurate.One user, for instance, pointed out that they couldn’t log breastfeeding, an activity that burns a significant number of calories.

The goals set by the platforms also aren’t based on public health guidelines, but on the user’s personal weight targets — which the researchers said can lead to unrealistic or even unsafe recommendations.One user reported being told they needed to consume “−700 (negative 700) calories a day” to reach their target weight.Another added: “If you allow [the app] to prescribe your calories you’ll end up with a deficit that’s unachievable, unsustainable and very unhealthy.

You could also starve to death.”Another major theme the researchers uncovered was th...