Serious concerns- promoting unhealthy weight

[SingingBubbles]

The Fitbit continues to congratulate me for weight loss even when my BMI has gone well into the abnormally low range (18.5 is the lower limit for the normal range.) Mine was at 18.5 and has dropped to 17.5.  Not healthy at all. That’s dangerous territory. So why is Fitbit commending me for such an “achievement”?  And why did my heart health score increase as a result? What message is that sending? This greatly concerns me.
Luckily, I’m aware that this is problematic, but others may spiral downward thinking that they are doing no harm. I’d love for Fitbit to promote health rather than weight loss by acknowledging when weight has dropped too low and encourage weight gain.  At the very least, make it so that people won’t be congratulated for being underweight.

[Glenda]

@SingingBubbles Fitbit is no worse than our government.  For years the gov. promoted very bad diets with no science behind  their ideas. The whole world thinks even midgets & I can lose weight on 1200 calories a day.  And Fitbit is all about counting things like calories used which was why I was so happy to start wearing one at first.   Everyone is all wrapped up in that and it doesn't work at all.   It is very good for counting steps you take and keeping time.  You can't eat more and subtract calories used and lose weight.  For you a thin  person  I think you just have to ignore the other stuff.    Maybe google what is healthy and would also cause you to gain weight.    Natural whole food but not sugar or too much flour.  Things that make others gain but wouldn't be healthy  would surely be doughnuts, french fried potatoes, candy.  etc  Fitbit IS worthwhile for telling me when I've read long enough on my treadmill to get off (5000 steps) and when I have reached the upper limit a day for what will actually help me to be healthier (7,500 a day at my age)   I google things like what is the absolute minimum exercise I can do for maintaining strength when over 70.  LOL ( the answer was a sit-to-stand exercise holding canned food in each hand.   Exercise is critical for better health.

[SingingBubbles]

I’m definitely aware of all of that. I’ve studied and experienced enough to be very familiar and more knowledgeable than the average person. The point is that the average person is not as aware and would be looking to their fitness tracker for guidance, expecting it to be generally accurate in terms of parameters of health and fitness. Fitbit should not be promoting such one sided misconceptions. It is a fitness tracker that should encourage health and thus should promote fitness rather than perpetuate the myths of pop culture. Especially when those myths are dangerous. My position and suggestion stands: the creators of Fitbit should adjust the programming such that it doesn’t blindly congratulate people for weight loss and should instead direct people toward and help them remain within a healthy weight range.

[Glenda]

@SingingBubbles   I agree.  It was probably just sloppy of them.  They are just so accustomed to talking about losing weight.  Not at all helpful for you .  Fitbit has lots of problems.  Their site collapses sometimes altogether.  I was in a group that started a new  chat place at 65andfit.freeforums.net that we actually liked lots better for a while.  Maybe we should do it again and not have an age mention in the web address.  We didn't have any experts giving wrong advice.

[Baltoscott]

@SingingBubbles — I agree with you.  The fact that yours is the first post I’ve seen to raise this issue says a lot about the typical Fitbit customer, and maybe the population in general. For the most part, at least among those who can afford to by buy fitness trackers, the issue is a tendency toward being overweight rather than underweight.  Even so, it seems inappropriate for the Fitbit algorithm to not warn a user who has entered a weight goal that falls below the healthy BMI range that the goal might be unhealthy. 

[TR51]

@SingingBubbles -- I agree that Fitbit shouldn't be continuing to reward you for losing weight when you've fallen below the normal-healthy BMI range, but there's a significant weight range within the normal BMI. Mine for example is from 125 lbs to 168 lbs. That being the case, other than a health condition that's causing you to lose weight excessively, why have you been continuing to lose weight? You were obviously in a healthy weight range for quite some time before dropping below it. Your comment doesn't really say whether your weight loss was intentional or not, but if it was intentional, you seem to have gone way too far.

[SingingBubbles]

I am very aware of BMI, it’s wide range of “normal” as well as it’s many fallacies. I was always a very small, thin individual, but when my colitis flares up, my weight plummets and my already thin frame becomes skeletal. I am quite aware of how unhealthy this is, which is the reason for my post. It is irresponsible for Fitbit to disregard the danger of too much weight loss because people who are not aware of how dangerous it is and began with intentional weight loss will see the encouragement as a green flag to keep going.
Just to be clear, my post is a plea to the creators and programmers of Fitbit to adjust their algorithms so that weight in an abnormal range, not be commended for increasing deviation from normal whether it be too high or too low.

[TR51]

@SingingBubbles -- Once again, I fully agree with your concern about Fitbit continuing to encourage people who've fallen into an unhealthy weight range. But because of your colitis and the unintentional weight loss that it causes, I guess Fitbit could also be criticized for not distinguishing between intentional and unintentional weight loss. And shouldn't Fitbit be throwing up red flags when someone loses an excessive amount of weight in a very short period of time, as you do with your colitis? I have high blood pressure and my doctor put me on a diuretic years ago that caused me to lose 7 lbs in a week, unhealthy by any measure, yet Fitbit was giving me kudos, not warning me about the excessive weight loss. 

[P.d.]

Thank you for broaching this incredibly serious issue. I struggle with disordered eating and find Fitbit not only encourages my weight loss when my BMI is unhealthily low, but also allows me to enter EXTREMELY unhealthy goal weights without any “red flags” or notes telling me this is an unhealthy goal. This really needs to be addressed. I can’t imagine how many people this must be effecting in a detrimental way. 

[jkjacks]

My personal opinion is that it is a legal issue for fitbit.  If they were to make a judgement about your health based on the statistics they collect, might they not hold some responsibility for their equipment not functioning in a way to motivate the user to make changes that will reduce their liability?  

For example, they see someone with sub-optimal BMI, thus they start pushing the person to consume more calories and exercise.  This way when the person goes to the hospital for malnourishment, fitbit is seen having suggested eating more.  But, what if the person has an autoimmune issue and take issue with all of the new notifications.  Then they start to go outside and exercise more and eating unhealthy foods just to load more calories.  There could be issues with that as well.  

To stay out of this completely, fitbit cannot make judgements of our statistics.  First, they might be wrong about the data.  You might be putting incorrect weight data.  Your scale might be off.  Second, you set your goals within the app.  If your set goal is weight gain, does it still congratulate you for losing weight?  I would hope not but would have to check to verify.  Even then, once your a healthy weight and it congratulates you for gaining another 10 pounds, your at the same issue.