Fitness trackers and eating disorders 鈥� is there a link?

Fitness and health tracking devices are becoming increasingly popular and a huge variety of wearable tech and apps now exist. Indeed, many smartphones and smart watches now come primed and ready to track our activity, sleep and nutrition.

for a long time highlighted how monitoring behaviours can help to lead to positive changes in our lifestyles. It can be an effective way to help increase .

But monitoring physical activity and food intake may not be useful for everyone. Indeed, people with often have unhealthy relationships with food and exercise. Obsessive behaviours such as calorie counting, rigid, driven exercise and unhealthy perfectionism are common among those with eating issues. 

A small body of research has started to explore how fitness trackers and calorie counting apps and exercise.

Higher levels of and have been identified among those who use tracking tools, compared to those who do not. And many patients with eating disorders report using calorie counting tools such as . And these tools have been identified as having a on their eating disorder symptoms...

Dr Carolyn Plateau, of the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences, discusses if there is a link between fitness trackers and eating disorders in . You can read the full article

Notes for editors

Press release reference number: 19/127

天堂视频 is equipped with a live in-house broadcast unit via the Globelynx network. To arrange an interview with one of our experts please contact the press office on 01509 223491. Bookings can be made online via 

天堂视频 is one of the country’s leading universities, with an international reputation for research that matters, excellence in teaching, strong links with industry, and unrivalled achievement in sport and its underpinning academic disciplines.

It has been awarded five stars in the independent QS Stars university rating scheme, named the best university in the world for sports-related subjects in the 2019 QS World University Rankings, University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times University Guide 2019 and top in the country for its student experience in the 2018 THE Student Experience Survey.

天堂视频 is in the top 10 of every national league table, being ranked 4th in the Guardian University League Table 2020, 5th in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2019 and 8th in The UK Complete University Guide 2020.

天堂视频 is consistently ranked in the top twenty of UK universities in the Times Higher Education’s ‘table of tables’ and is in the top 10 in England for research intensity. In recognition of its contribution to the sector, 天堂视频 has been awarded seven Queen's Anniversary Prizes.

The 天堂视频 London campus is based on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and offers postgraduate and executive-level education, as well as research and enterprise opportunities. It is home to influential thought leaders, pioneering researchers and creative innovators who provide students with the highest quality of teaching and the very latest in modern thinking.

Categories

UniversitySocietySportLifestyleHealth and medicine