{"id":47730,"date":"2025-08-05T19:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T19:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/47730\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T19:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T19:41:10","slug":"how-health-trackers-could-promote-human-flourishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/47730\/","title":{"rendered":"How health trackers could promote human flourishing"},"content":{"rendered":"

WHOOP, a company based in Kenmore Square, estimates<\/a> your \u201cphysiological age.\u201d Oura assesses<\/a> your \u201ccardiovascular age.\u201d Tonal pitches<\/a> \u201cstrength training for longevity,\u201d while Peloton now emphasizes<\/a> \u201chealthy aging.\u201d Each platform offers a dashboard of metrics and a path to optimize them. The message: If you can improve your numbers, you can live longer and better.<\/p>\n

Get The Gavel<\/p>\n

A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr.<\/p>\n

There is real promise here. A raft of research has shown that aging is shaped by the choices we make. Regular exercise, healthy diet, and consistent sleep help reduce the chronic inflammation that drives many age-related diseases, including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, neurodegenerative conditions, and some cancers.<\/p>\n

But if these platforms truly aspire to support us over the long arc of our lives \u2014 to promote not just athletic performance but enduring well-being \u2014 they\u2019ll need to move beyond<\/a> a narrow fixation on performance metrics and embrace a more capacious view of health<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A preoccupation with metrics isn\u2019t new. We\u2019ve long confused measurement for meaning. \u201cYou can\u2019t manage what you can\u2019t measure,\u201d the management guru Peter Drucker once said, and an entire generation of health products took his words literally. Steps. Sleep scores. Heart rate variability. Recovery readiness. All of it stacked into leaderboards and streaks.<\/p>\n

The apotheosis of this must be the Rejuvenation Olympics<\/a> (a real thing), where biohackers compete and are publicly ranked<\/a> based on an experimental blood measurement<\/a> of their rate of aging.<\/p>\n

Some people thrive on this kind of structure. But many don\u2019t<\/a>. For every self-quantifier optimizing zone two training, there\u2019s someone quietly opting out, discouraged or overwhelmed. And often, it\u2019s the people who most need encouragement to improve their health who are most alienated by the dashboard approach<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What gets measured gets managed, yes. But as historian Jerry Muller warned<\/a>, \u201cnot everything that matters can be measured, and much of what is measured doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah put it<\/a> even more sharply: \u201cHappiness is not an optimization problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Health isn\u2019t either \u2014 at least not entirely. Some optimization clearly matters: lowering blood pressure, controlling cholesterol, reducing excess weight. But the pursuit of health also involves something more holistic: a sense of coherence, direction, and possibility.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking about flourishing.<\/p>\n

Flourishing is more than just feeling good or being disease-free. It\u2019s a richer concept that encompasses engagement, connection, purpose, and momentum. <\/p>\n

One of the most compelling illustrations<\/a> of its value comes from the Harvard Study of Adult Development, a landmark effort that has followed individuals for more than 80 years. Its core finding: The greatest predictor of healthy aging isn\u2019t money or fame or even fitness. It\u2019s the quality of our relationships.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean wearables should start assigning numbers to the quantity of our friends and the depths of our friendships. And that doesn\u2019t mean fitness is irrelevant to our long-term health \u2014 but there is another opportunity for these platforms: helping people regain a broader sense of agency in their lives. <\/p>\n

Agency is the motivational currency<\/a> of behavior change. When people believe their efforts have the potential to make a difference, they\u2019re more likely to try, to persist, and to adapt. Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, has shown that agency \u2014 a term that he often uses interchangeably with optimism \u2014 is associated<\/a> with improved physical health, greater psychological resilience, stronger academic and workplace performance, and reduced risk of depression. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible for digital tools to enhance our sense of agency by incorporating AI that draws on cognitive behavioral therapy and other proven therapy techniques. Startups such Slingshot AI<\/a> and Lore Health<\/a> (disclosure: I am an adviser) are pursuing such AI-enabled approaches.<\/p>\n

Most fitness-tracking systems, though, remain behaviorally transactional. They track achievement but rarely contextualize it. They celebrate completion but not growth. They reward performance, not progress toward meaning. We need tools that help us make sense of our efforts and deepen connection.<\/p>\n

For starters, platforms could help users connect the dots \u2014 offering context that highlights how everyday accomplishments, like finishing a workout or sticking to a sleep schedule, represent not just physical progress but growing evidence of the platforms\u2019 capacity to improve the users\u2019 overall well-being. <\/p>\n

Next, platforms must move beyond their comfort zone of measurement and optimization. Supporting long-term flourishing means embracing a category of activity that\u2019s experienced more than quantified. Call it \u201csoulful engagement\u201d: sharing a trail walk with a friend, learning something that sparks curiosity, or pitching in on a local volunteer project.<\/p>\n

Fitness platforms could connect people with family fun runs, nature walks through AllTrails, or local volunteer projects like Habitat for Humanity. Or they might partner with curated content providers like Shortform<\/a> or The Great Courses<\/a> to offer accessible ideas, summaries, and lectures that ignite intellectual engagement. <\/p>\n

\u201cSoulful engagement\u201d might seem, at first blush, to be well out of scope for platforms built around the quantification of measurable physiological parameters. Yet that\u2019s precisely the point. If these platforms are serious about cultivating flourishing and longevity, a more expansive approach is required.<\/p>\n

Peloton\u2019s CEO, Peter C. Stern, has recently gestured toward this, announcing<\/a> plans to triple the number of \u201creal-life\u201d events hosted by the company over the next year.<\/p>\n

I recognize that the evolution I\u2019m describing for health platforms is ambitious and far from easy. But the platforms that take this path may not only deepen engagement among current members but also attract a new cohort of users: customers who aren\u2019t obsessed with metrics and measurement. <\/p>\n

To their credit, platforms like WHOOP and Peloton got us moving. The next step isn\u2019t pedaling harder. It\u2019s going deeper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WHOOP, a company based in Kenmore Square, estimates your \u201cphysiological age.\u201d Oura assesses your \u201ccardiovascular age.\u201d Tonal pitches…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[49,48,407,84,33031],"class_list":{"0":"post-47730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fitness","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-ideas-cover"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}