I continue to hear the same sentence repeat itself in my head.
“My vision is that each American has a laptop in the four years.”
RFK Jr., our current secretary of the Ministry of Health and Social Services, said this during a conference hearing at the end of June. The clothes, he said, are the key to the Maha – make America healthy – the agenda. Kennedy positioned portable devices for Americans as a means of “taking control” or “taking responsibility” on their health by monitoring how their lifestyle has an impact on their measures. At the hearing, he also quoted that his friends had lost books and “lost their diagnosis of diabetes” thanks to devices like continuous glucose monitors (CGM).
I am a portable expert. I obviously do not hate these devices. My problem with Kennedy’s “portable for each American” is that he brings credibility to the idea that everyone Benefits of portable technology. It’s not that simple.
I started to wear a Fitbit in 2014 to lose weight. I had mysteriously won 40 pounds in six months. I started running. Diet. Obsessively following my steps, reaching 10,000 to 15,000 per day, rain or good weather. I ate as little as 800 calories while recording 15,000 steps per day – for me, about 7.5 miles of walking. The promise of all this data and what Kennedy Vante is that people will have usable data to improve their health. I had a ton of data. I could see that things did not add up. But the way these products and their applications are designed, I did not know how to “take control” of my health. Instead, I continued to earn weight.
I cried a lot during this period. My mom too, who brought my sudden aversion to carbohydrates as a personal offense. (How can you not eat bap? Bap is life !!) it didn’t matter that I am being executed or that I measured everything with a food scale. Whenever I went to see my doctors, I would show them my Fitbit data and wondered to be taken seriously. My doctors did not know what to do with what they were shown. Nor did I know how to communicate what I saw effectively. Instead, they have suggested everything, “you have to become a vegan” to “people with slow metabolisms just have more efforts”. In 2016, I scored 20 additional pounds and, after three years, I received a diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome – a hormonal condition which often causes weight gain and resistance to insulin.
The portable devices helped me realize that something was turned off, but it was a riding walk that responded to an answer. It was true for my global experience. Of course, this technology helped improve aspects of my health. I am a much more active person. I went from not being able to run a mile to run two half-marathons, a handful of 10 km and several 5 km. My sleep is more regular. I went from a night bird to an early rising column. I saw my heart rate at rest decrease by about 75 beats per minute while sleeping at around 55 bpm. My cholesterol is lower. My weight in Yo-Yo, but overall, I was able to maintain a weight loss of 25 pounds out of the 60 pounds that I gained from the sopk. And, I put more muscle.
What I did not share so publicly is that these improvements have reached a heavy cost for my mental health.
My first three years with portable devices destroyed my relationship with food. Despite the follow -up of my data, I did not get a lot of results. Nor was there a ton of advice on how to apply my data learning in a healthy way. I ended up by hyperfixation while trying everything that hinted to help me reach my goal. I ended up with disorderly eating habits. Food recording is also an important characteristic of these portable applications, so I meticulously weighed and recorded everything I ate for years. If I even had 15 calories on the budget, I would go a five -minute race around the block to burn 50 calories and get back. I avoided social outings because, during the restoration, my calorie newspapers were not guaranteed to be exact. If I did not make enough progress, I would punish myself by jumping the meals. According to my therapist, I started to show slight signs of mental orthorexia and anorexia.
I also started to develop anxiety about my racing performance. If I did not improve my VO2 Max or Mile Times, I was failure. It didn’t matter that I went from 16 to 16 minutes to register an 8 -minute, 45 -second personal record. Whenever I hurt myself, my figures lowered and I would feel like a complete failure. When my father died, I was stuck in a funeral lounge in the Korean countryside, in circles so that I do not lose my step sequence. Ironically, in order to please my portable suzerains, I ended up injuring myself several times in over -dependencia in the last decade.
I’m fine now, thanks to a lot of work in therapy and with my loved ones. But healing is not one thing to one and due. Eighty-five percent of the time, I use portable devices in a much more reasonable way. I take intentional breaks, the other five percent of the time, whenever old habits raise their ugly head.
Mine is not a unique experience. Several studies and reports have shown that portable devices can increase health anxiety. Anecdotal, when a friend or knowledge obtains a new laptop, I generally receive one of the two types of messages. The first is an obsessive account of their data and all the ways in which they monitor food intake. The other is a wave of worried texts asking whether their weak VRC, their heart rate or another measure is a sign that they will die. Most of these messages come from people who have had a recent fear of health, and I generally spend the following time to teach them to interpret their reference data in less absolute terms. And this is where the friction resides. These devices overloaded people in my life with too much information but not enough context. How can we effectively “take control of your health” if it finds it difficult to understand it?
There has never been, and there will never be a unique solution.
There has never been, and there will never be a unique solution. This is why I am skeptical that Kennedy’s vision is even feasible. Doctors do not always know how to interpret portable data. Not only would that be a massive company to give each American a laptop. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of products on the market, and everyone’s health needs are unique. Would the government subsidize the cost? Where do health insurance companies, FSA and HSA register in this image? So far, all we have heard of Kennedy is that HHS plans to “launch one of the biggest advertising campaigns in HHS history” to promote portable use.
But even if Kennedy had to resolve this logistics nightmare, I dispute the framing of portable devices as a necessary component in the health course of anyone. You risk creating scenarios where insurance companies use portable devices such as reducing or increasing bonuses, similar to how certain automotive insurance providers use telematic devices to monitor their customers driving in exchange for discounts. It seems good in theory, but he also opens the door to discrimination. Some, but not all, diseases can be treated or prevented by lifestyle changes.
Not everyone will know the dark side of this technology like me. But I know that many have done so, and many others will do it. Some, like me, will eventually find a healthy balance. For others, the healthiest thing they could do is avoid laptops.
