counting in terms of jogging minutes

[fred trotter]

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/12/16/if-250-calorie-label-doesnt-stop-50-minute-jog-label-might/

Is more effective than counting calories.

I wonder how we could use this?

-FT

--
Fred Trotter
http://www.fredtrotter.com

[Eric Hekler]

It makes a lot of sense to me.  Calories are practically meaningless whereas someone can really "feel" what 50 minutes of walking mean.  Cool little study. The underlying point, in my view, is that we need to be designing our feedback numbers to be linked with other actions (e.g., walking) that an individual can instantly understand rather than force them to do any sort of mental math about what it means (e.g., 250 calories=40 minutes of walking; we should do that for them).  

 Thanks for sharing, Fred!

Eric

Eric Hekler, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Nutrition Program
Health Outcomes @ASU
Arizona State University
500 North 3^rd St. room 121
Phoenix, AZ 85004
Office # (602) 827-2271
Email: ehe...@asu.edu

[fred trotter]

I think those apps that let you point your cell phone camera at the spanish/whatever other text and it "overwrites" it will english are pretty cool.

You could write a food label scanner that scans the standard labels and translates into jogging time, given your height/weight etc etc.
I would not be surprised if it already exists.

-FT

[Eric Hekler]

I like that idea, Fred.   

Eric Hekler, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Nutrition Program
Health Outcomes @ASU
Arizona State University
500 North 3^rd St. room 121
Phoenix, AZ 85004
Office # (602) 827-2271
Email: ehe...@asu.edu

[Sean Ahrens]

Pounds instead of calories?

I know this wouldn't be easy (or scientifically precise), but I'd love the idea of a treadmill telling you that you burnt an 1/8 of a pound, after a really long run (putting it in terms that make actual meaningful sense to the reason you are working out).

Probably way to far off to be possible in any scientific precision, but I'd love to see someone design a hack to at least take a shot at it.

Sean Ahrens

@seanahrens

Linkedin.com/in/seanahrens

Facebook.com/seanahrens

[Eric Hekler]

As you pointed out, it would be really rough to get that one "right" from a scientific precision.  I'd be scared of telling people something so pointed that they would then (justifiably) start calculating their eating and activity to accommodate.  In the short-term and for some, it might work really well, but it is just so hard to know the exact mechanisms behind weight loss (e.g., see attached classic twin study paper).  To me, a more long-term goal would be to see if we can get better metrics of obesity (e.g., % body fat) into folks lexicon and then report that.  There are just too many variables impacting weight to rely too much on it.  

Eric

Eric Hekler, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Nutrition Program
Health Outcomes @ASU
Arizona State University
500 North 3^rd St. room 121
Phoenix, AZ 85004
Office # (602) 827-2271
Email: ehe...@asu.edu

[fred trotter]

Eric,

          Just to note. Getting commentary on this level is precicely why I wanted to set this list up!! I never would have run across this article otherwise!!

          I do agree that pounds are not good. I was very frustrated to see that withings has unreasonable default settings on its twitter feed reporting, and I ranted about that more here: 

http://www.fredtrotter.com/2010/11/09/the-ethics-of-weight-and-body-fat-on-twitter/

-FT

[Eric Hekler]

Nice write-up, Fred.  That's actually a topic I'm starting to explore with some colleagues.  We're submitting a grant soon on how to make better posts from systems like Withings and Fitbit. Direct response to what you were kvetching about.  I hope we can figure out something that you will find helpful.   :)

Eric

Eric Hekler, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Nutrition Program
Health Outcomes @ASU
Arizona State University
500 North 3^rd St. room 121
Phoenix, AZ 85004
Office # (602) 827-2271
Email: ehe...@asu.edu

[Eric Hekler]

Hey Fred et al., 
  

    Ernesto and I were chatting about your post (both really like it) and thinking about the other message you sent in and also thinking about this recent study suggesting the advantage of being vague with information as it allows folks to fill in the gaps related to expectations:   http://himanshumishra.com/publication_files/Malleable%20information_Psych%20Science%202011.pdf 

    We should have a conversation to see if we can come up with a quick hack on how we might be able to make a cool new vague but valuable info to come out of the Withings scale.  Interested?

Eric

    
Eric Hekler, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Nutrition Program
Health Outcomes @ASU
Arizona State University
500 North 3^rd St. room 121
Phoenix, AZ 85004
Office # (602) 827-2271
Email: ehe...@asu.edu

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 1:14 PM, fred trotter <fred.t...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Eric Hekler]

Hi, all.

    To further riff on this, I was just reading a pretty awesome article from Science.  The study explored, experimentally, the impact of being similar to others within a social network on it's impact in health adoption.  The folks were matched only on age, gender, and BMI compared to a nonmatched group.  The matched group over 7 weeks engaged in adoption of more health behaviors.   

    I'm curious if this might be a key design feature to help and design around, particularly related to posting weight information.    Thoughts?  Comments?

Eric

Eric Hekler, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Nutrition Program
Health Outcomes @ASU
Arizona State University
500 North 3^rd St. room 121
Phoenix, AZ 85004
Office # (602) 827-2271
Email: ehe...@asu.edu