Ability to turn off calorie counting on all Fitbit devices

[Quigley2]

Hi guys, 

My name is Caroline and this time last year I weighed a mere 45 kg (I'm 5 foot 9) and was borderline hospitalised and tubed. Now I'm healthy and building muscle like there's no tomorrow. I love fit bits, I think their a great gadget for fitness, but I can't use mine because the calorie feature makes me feel the need to restrict my intake. I am not blaming the company for this, for some counting calories is very important in their journey to health, but to some its detrimental. So I really think this should be an optional feature for everyone. I hope people will support this idea and provide some help to the eating disorder recovery community. I understand that this isn't a huge deal, but it's important to me so please take the time to support my idea,

Caroline 

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[EdsonFitbit]

@Quigley2 Thank you for telling us your story and for sharing your suggestion about turning off calorie counting.

I agree this could be very useful. Let's see what other users think.

[Katieherger]

I completely agree.  I have been looking for a device that tracks sleep, hydration and female tracking but does not have a calorie counter for my daughter with anorexia.  The Fitbit would be perfect if I could disable the calorie tracking.  Please consider in the future.

[KyraIsLost]

• I hope more people see this and vote for it. I have the same issue of letting the numbers get to me, and because my sister is anorexic it’s dangerous for her to use the ap. Would love to just see macros and that’s all. 

[SunsetRunner]

I completely agree. I took a break from using mine because I noticed i started worrying about calories having never done so before. I just want to track my exercise to see if im getting faster/better endurance. Its so counter productive to have a great workout but then feel bad about the number of calories you burned

[Noorwint]

I was rather shocked that my Inspire HR (watch, dashboard and app) is so obsessed with weight, food intake and calories. And even with the Ace 2 of my son, I recieved a weekly update with "burnt calories and decreased weight"!

It would be very healthty to be able to shut down all the options focused on weight and calories; people of all sorts, shapes, conditions and ages schould be able to be inspired to move becaus it makes you feel good and improves your condition.

Even if you migt be overweigted, it is not always a goal to lose weight, while being confonted with the weight in your watch, will make people feel guilty or bad about themselve. Lifestyle should be about the way you feel and function, not with the way you look.

I bought the Ace 2 for my son to help him get reminders to take his medication; the stepcouting is a fun extra. If he would be older, I might get him a Fitbit that monitors his HR as well, because it gives much more infirmation about his condition and his sleep.
But I would be very unhappy if this would confront him with silly grown-up tings about how you should be worried about your looks and weight. Therefor, I would absolutely NOT give a Fitbit to a Young girl, who gets many more confrontations every day about her looks, and how she should earn appreciation and frienship if she fits certain expectations.

Since the Ace 2 is one of the few smartwatches/lifestyle watches for kids, you can make a standard for this segment; make sure it doesn't blindly follow the options for all the other watches; be aware what is is that kids and youngsters need to grow up healthy, with a healthy selfesteem!

Realise that your other watches will be bought for youngsters/teenagers, and provide them with the options for a healthy digital environment tot suport their use of these watches; make calories optional instead of dominant in the dashboard, and make the possibility to turn them ON, instead of making them standard, with an option to switch it off. Who needs to see his/her weigt on his watch all day? Give people the opportunity to switch it off.

[Noorwint]

The dashboard log is such a nasty thing where you can freak out about inserting every cruble you ate at any meal of the day. I thing that might be a trigger for young girls who will be interested in te beginning; just waching wat they can get out of it... And some of them might get a bit more serious, and will start to compensate unhealthy stuff with more exercise... But Teenagers eat horrible amounts of food; they are growing and developing their bodies and brains; they simply need a lot of calories!

This simple calorie-counting tool will be inaccurate, and it gives the wrong focus... |
20 years ago I had a weak period when 2 of my (new) friends had anorexia. I nearly ended up trying to keep ahead of them (I had a very slim body) and for a period of about half a year, I used books with calorie-tables to monitor what I was eating. Then I realised that it was a sily contest in my head, and I gave up. I din'd have the kind of underlaying issues that made me want to keep control about these silly things. If I would have had a Fitbit in these days, I might have gotten much more obsessed; is is made so easy for you...

[Noorwint]

I like the way fitbit helps tot monitor healthy habits, and shows your steps, distance and sleep. It can be smart to keep track of drinking too. The alarms and timer are nice for kids and grow-ups. Focus on these things in marketing and lay-out; as an option for existing watches of for a simple new line of products.

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi @Noorwint! Great feedback, thanks for sharing all this information with us. We really appreciate it. I've moved it into a similar request. I think that a lot of user would like to have this option on their Fitbits. You can learn more about how Fitbit decides what suggestions get released in our FAQs.

[Noorwint]

Hi YojanaFitbit, I see the similarity of the request. But will it get many votes in the categorie Nutrition, where possibly the most people who visit are very interested in their calorie consumption?

[Daniellabis]

I completely agree with this.

It is a shock to me that right now one cannot hide the calories burned on their Fitbit. A company that is so “health focused” should consider that a lot of their users struggle with mental issues such as eating disorders every day. I have not been able to use my Fitbit for the past year due to the calories calculations triggering me to my disordered eating habits. This is important Fitbit and this is your chance to make a difference and support not only weight loss but also overall health and recovery.

Please allow this change and add the option to hide calories on all fitbits. This will help me and many others in their recovery. 

[rraehodgson]

I would really love to not have to see anything to do with weight, food or calories. With a history of disordered eating I find this very triggering. I have been able to delete these in the web page dashboard but not on the app, I can only get my alta to not show me calories I don't seem to be able to remove anything on the app. This will greatly impact whether I use it or not as it is a high risk for triggering things for me if I am being encouraged to log weight, food etc. Please change these settings and make it more customisable.

[Trijo]

I completely agree. I have been able to turn this off in the app but would like to turn it off on the screen of my tracker also. As someone recovering eating disorder, it’s important to remove this.

[rraehodgson]

I have now been able to remove calories from my dashboard and device screen. However, I would like to suggest that there be an option to completely remove all mention of weight and calories. Just signing up I had to put in a weight and when I go into exercise it tells me how many calories I've burned and there doesn't seem to be a way to remove that. I also wanted to try a program and the first thing it asked was what was my weight goal. It's a real minefield and I'm having to be very careful in how I use it. Please consider providing an option to remove all calorie and weight measurements/records.

[Trijo]

This is a great improvement! Can you tell me how you removed this?

[rraehodgson]

To get them off the app on the today screen I went to edit at the top right and deleted calories from the today items and unticked calories from the activity items.

For device display go to account click on your fitbit, then 'customise display' and I unticked calories then. This is for an alta hr with an iphone.

Hope that helps!

[Kiernla]

I strongly agree. I would very much like to remove calories and weight from my Inspire 2 tracker and dashboard, as I also have a history of disordered eating and weight anxiety. I want to monitor my movement, heart rate, and sleep. I do not need constant reminders about calories or weight. It's frustrating that this can no longer be turned off.

[BeeBeeD1]

I would also like to support this feature request. We bought a Fitbit for my 17y old daughter who enjoyed using it but we were surprised to find it made her anxious/obsessed with calorie count. We removed it from the display but she could always look at it via the phone app. Ultimately she made the decision to stop using it (and I am now wearing it and enjoying it!).

We are luck but this is a serious topic and for young people it is important that we understand the strength of dangers of such devices. We had no idea of the potential obsessive and destructive behaviour and it is something that we should be made aware of for vulnerable people. I do get it... its a balance since being aware of how much you are eating/overeating is sensible but controls should be in place so Fitbit please do consider the request.

[Minicooper813]

I highly support this as well. Having the option to turn of calorie counts for food intake would make the app so much more inclusive.

[Nay-OH-mee]

This! Please!  I just upgraded from Charge to Inspire2 because I wanted a clock.  (Clock, step counter, sleep tracker, and wrist buzzer for my always-silent phone... that would be my ideal package).  With my Charge I had calorie counts turned off on my phone display, because this is information I actively DO NOT want.  But now that I can check information on the device and not my phone, I have to scroll past calories to get to the sleep data.  I was really hoping I'd be able to disable this!

[Chakakant]

Also, could the optional calorie display also be extended to the food tracking tab? As it's useful to log food but I don't want to have to calorie count as I too am dealing with an eating disorder. Currently, I've changed it to kilojoules as I'm not so au fait with them as as a unit but it's not ideal.  

I have removed calories going out on the main app which is useful. But it would be good for calories going in to be an optional too. 

[Dragonmaid]

I absolutely agree. I have a dietitian who has spent years trying to get me to eat more and even though I try not to think about it, I'm always checking my calorie output. 

[Chakakant]

Also, additional to the above. On the Charge 4 there is a "fat burn" stat which is not optional. Not everyone is looking to "burn fat" with exercise and reinforces the myth that exercising to lose weight is the main reason to exercise.

Also, you should be able to specifically opt out of unsolicited diet advice emails from Fitbit. 

This is such a great product for what it can do for monitoring fitness, but the marketing and dashboards are biased and reinforce diet culture which is not why everyone uses Fitbit. Make it for EVERY body.

[vkmartin]

Very much agree with this suggestion. In fact, I had a friend asking today if there was any step/heart rate tracker out there that didn't include calories, because they would like to use one but calorie counting leads to unhealthy behaviour for them. They have tried a Fitbit in the past and had to stop using it because of the calorie tracker.

[konijntje]

I agree with this. I had an eating disorder for many years and despite being long recovered, I still feel that my mental health is better served by not focussing on weight and calories.

[Teff88]

Completely agree. A simple toggle off for all calorie tracking, goals etc across the app and the device would help so many people.