Does My Kid Need a Fitness Tracker?
When is it diet culture, when is it "encouraging movement."
Breaking FAT TALK news: We’re one week out! And yes, I teared up reading this review by Kate Cohen for The Washington Post, and this one by Carrie Dennett for The Seattle Times. I may have also cried a little signing hundreds of your preorders with my girl Heidi (and her perfectly edible baby Juniper) for Split Rock Books yesterday morning. So we can just buckle up for an emotional week.
You still have time to preorder, and enter the preorder giveaway, and the book club giveaway. If you’re local, I’d love to see you Saturday at the official launch!
And if you’re in NYC, I’d love to see you at McNally Jackson at the Seaport next Tuesday. (Here’s the rest of the book tour.)
Ask Virginia: Should Kids Count Steps?
Disclaimer: You’re reading this column because you value my input as a journalist who reports on these issues and therefore has a lot of informed opinions. I’m not a healthcare provider, and these responses are not meant to substitute for medical or therapeutic advice.
Q: How do I articulate to my spouse why it makes me so very uncomfortable that they want to let our 9-year-old have a FitBit? They also want to have family step challenges. Help!
My 9-year-old has a Verizon Gizmo watch, which we purchased because she sometimes walks with a friend to the library after school and we want her to have a way to reach us/be located if that goes awry. It’s not a FitBit, but it does have a step-counting tracker that we have never used, because it makes me so very uncomfortable as well. We have good reasons for our discomfort, and I’m going to walk through those.
But first I want to acknowledge that this is a question likely to invoke strong feelings on all sides because a lot of people really, really love their FitBits (and Apple Watches and Garmins and insert-whatever-tech-here). We want to see step counters and other fitness trackers like these as benign, or even a force for good. These devices are marketed as a kinder, gentler approach to fitness. You aren’t torturing yourself in CrossFit or Barry’s Bootcamp, you aren’t dieting, you’re just taking a walk. You’re taking the stairs instead of the elevator. You’re getting outside more. Nobody is asking you to sweat or have abs or count calories. Walking is regularly heralded as the most doable, accessible, low stakes form of exercise out there. Your grandma does it! You can too!
I think this is why FitBits for kids feels like such a good idea in theory. It’s just encouraging movement! Kids already love to move and play! Why not make it even more fun with a cute watch thingy that taps into their other big love of screens and devices, but this time with health benefits? “Pointing out a low step count might occasionally motivate him to go outside and enjoy a beautiful day!” a mom named Joanna told me on Twitter about the FitBit she gave her 7-year-old, “mostly for the sleep function.” Other parents told me that their kids like the occasional thrill of hitting a big step count number, but otherwise use their FitBits mostly as watches or for chore reminders, or forget about them on bedroom floors. Especially for kids, we think, it really should be possible to frame any movement-tracking device as a mildly interesting, just for fun, no pressure way to remind them of the joy of physical activity.
And yet.