醒醒吧，运动手环给不了你更好的身材

07 醒醒吧，运动手环给不了你更好的身材

近些年来，各种可穿戴设备、健身追踪器层出不穷。你的活动、心率、睡眠，都成为可视化的数据，呈现在眼前。社交平台上有关运动情况的分享，相信你每天都能看到。这不免让人感觉，只要我们记录了走了多少步、睡了几个小时、饮食构成，就可以生活得更好了。

然而事实果真如此吗？

英国《金融时报》专栏作家Philip Delves Broughton与大家分享了最近匹兹堡大学研究人员最新的实验结果，并对健身追踪器流行的现象进行了一番点评。他的观点恐怕会出乎你的意料了。

Philip Delves Broughton首先指出，这些设备给出的数据，用途是因人而异的。

On someone who is already fit, it is yet another weapon to establish physical superiority, rather like talking about the skiing holiday or the ultra-marathon they did over the weekend.

对于那些已经身材不错的人来说，可穿戴设备是另一种显示体能优势的“武器”，就像和朋友讨论你的滑雪假期，或者周末跑的超长距离马拉松一样。

On anyone who falls short of physical perfection, a fitness tracker is an indicator of a desire to do better, like having a Tony Robbins book on the shelf in your office; it comes, though, with that air of sadness you find in people eating salad while dreaming of hamburgers.

对于那些身材不够完美的人来说，健身追踪器就像是一个指示器，提醒着你有一个“想要做得更好”的愿望。这就类似于在你办公室的书架上放一本托尼·罗宾斯（美国励志演讲家和作家）的书，时刻激励自己。然而，悲哀的是人们通常都是嘴里嚼着沙拉，却梦想着在吃汉堡。

一些本来打算入手健身追踪设备，来敦促自己过更健康的生活的人，可能看到这里就会纠结了。

下面匹兹堡大学研究人员的成果，说不定会彻底打消你买各种“手环”、“运动手表”的打算：

This week, thanks to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, we learnt that a group of overweight adults who wore fitness trackers lost less weight than a second group who logged their activity and what they had eaten on a website each day — without the electronic chivvying.

多亏了匹兹堡大学的研究人员。本周我们发现，两组相同的超重成年人，穿戴健身追踪器的那一组所减的重量，反而比摒弃电子花样的另外一组少，后者仅每天在网上记录运动和饮食。

实验的细节是这样的：

Over 18 months, a group of volunteers was given the same kind of support and encouragement to lose weight.The only difference was that in the latter part of the study, half wore the tracker and half recorded their habits on a website.

在18个月里，一群志愿者在同样的支持和鼓励下减肥。唯一的区别是在研究的后半部分，一些人穿戴了追踪器，其余的人在网站上记录他们的习惯。

The researchers were “pretty confident” that the people with activity monitors would exercise more, eat better and lose more weight.

研究人员原本深信不疑地认为，穿戴运动监测器的人们会做更多运动、吃得更健康、减掉更多体重。

Instead, over two years they lost a little less than 8lb on average compared with 13lb by those who did not wear monitors.Dr John Jakicic, who led the survey, said: “We were definitely surprised.” What seems surprising is that he assumed the trackers would be more effective.

事实刚好相反：两年来，他们平均每人只减轻了8磅体重，相比而言，没有戴监测器的那一组平均减重13磅。主持了这项调查的John Jakicic博士说：“我们当然很吃惊”。他原本的实验假定是，这些监测器会更有效的。

Philip Delves Broughton还发现，那些什么数据都记录的人，一般可以被分为三类：

1 Those who do so for serious medical reasons.

那些出于医疗原因的人。

2 Those who choose to do it in order to achieve peak physical performance.

那些想要达到体能表现巅峰的人。

3 Those who expect a great deal of themselves for other reasons — because they are busy, ambitious or both.

那些因为忙碌、雄心或者二者都有，对自己期待甚高的人。

Then there are the rest of us.The great middle who sort of want to, maybe, lose a few pounds, get a bit fitter, not feel tired in the middle of the afternoon and possibly a kick a ball without feeling a twang in the hamstring.

剩下的才是我们：这是一大群夹在中间的人——想要稍稍减几磅的体重，身材更好一点，不要在下午感到太疲惫，或者可能是想要在踢球的时候别抽筋。

For us, technology has yet to provide many of the great answers and the fitness tracker quickly ends up in the kitchen drawer with the dead batteries, the broken scissors and the five-year-old Kindle, which was supposed to lead to us reading more.(It turns out you could not be bothered to charge it and soon found you can live without it.)

对于我们而言，科技还没有提供足够好的答案，而健身追踪器的最终归宿是在厨房的抽屉里，和废电池、破剪刀和本期待被用来让我们读更多书的买了五年的Kindle躺在一起。（最后你发现自己不必再被给它充电而烦恼，并且迅速发现这些设备不是必需品）

Likewise, my phone is littered with apps that promise to help me meditate on planes.The only one I have found that takes me away from the dreadful claustrophobia I feel when flying does nothing more than play birdsong.This is hardly the revolution in healthcare I was promised.

同样，我的手机里也躺着几个荒废了的应用，它们承诺可以帮助我在飞机上冥想。唯一一个能赶走我在飞行时糟透了的幽闭恐怖感的，不过是放一些鸟叫声。这很难算得上是承诺中的“健康护理的革命”。

There is also a privacy issue.An executive from Fitbit, a wearable device maker, recently told the Financial Times about its collaborations with companies.“What we give [employers]is access to real-time data on a corporate dashboard to get visibility into the health of [their employees].”

还涉及到隐私问题。一位Fitbit（一个可穿戴设备制造商）的高管最近向英国《金融时报》谈起他们与一些公司的合作。“我们给雇主一个公司的‘仪表盘'，可以显示他们雇员实时的健康情况。”

最后，Philip Delves Broughton总结：

I am not yet ready to give up on wearable devices but they need to do a lot more work if they are not to go the way of every other diet and exercise fad.

我暂时不会放弃使用可穿戴设备，但是如果它们不想像某些节食计划或者运动一样，仅仅成为一时的流行，那么它们还需要做更多工作。

词汇总结

chivvy ['tʃɪvi]

vt.使烦扰；耍花招（等于chivy）

we learnt that a group of overweight adults who wore fitness trackers lost less weight than a second group who logged their activity and what they had eaten on a website each day — without the electronic chivvying.

本周我们发现，两组相同的超重成年人，穿戴健身追踪器的那一组所减的重量，反而比摒弃电子花样的另外一组少，后者仅每天在网上记录运动和饮食。

hamstring ['hæmstrɪŋ]

n.腿筋

vt.切断腿筋使成跛腿；使残废

twang [twæŋ]

n.鼻音；弦声；砰然一声

The great middle who sort of want to, maybe, lose a few pounds, get a bit fitter, not feel tired in the middle of the afternoon and possibly a kick a ball without feeling a twang in the hamstring.

这是一大群夹在中间的人——想要稍稍减几磅的体重，身材更好一点，不要在下午感到太疲惫，或者可能是想要在踢球的时候别抽筋。

litter with 散落着；将……乱扔在……处；使杂乱

Likewise, my phone is littered with apps that promise to help me meditate on planes.

同样，我的手机里也躺着几个荒废了的应用，它们承诺可以帮助我在飞机上冥想。

claustrophobia幽闭恐惧症

The only one I have found that takes me away from the dreadful claustrophobia I feel when flying does nothing more than play birdsong.

唯一一个能赶走我在飞行时糟透了的幽闭恐怖感的，不过是放一些鸟叫声。