{"id":289273,"date":"2025-11-13T14:42:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T14:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/289273\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T14:42:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T14:42:10","slug":"health-apps-are-too-obsessed-with-metrics-and-dashboards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/289273\/","title":{"rendered":"Health apps are too obsessed with metrics and dashboards"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Trump\u2019s recently announced deal<\/a> with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk will likely widen GLP-1 access, lowering prices for self-pay users and capping Medicare copays<\/a>. Effects on commercial plans will vary by insurer<\/a>, and Medicaid coverage will be determined state by state<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The question now is how to best serve the millions who, freed from a lifetime of yo-yo dieting, are re-engaging with their health and looking for a helping hand.\u00a0For many GLP-1 users, that success has reawakened a long-dormant sense that a healthier life is within reach<\/a>. They\u2019re primed and hopeful, even if some caution remains.<\/p>\n

Technology could, and should, assist them.<\/p>\n

But instead of starting with what most people care about \u2014 living a deeper, more fulfilling life \u2014 wellness apps have framed the task as metrics optimization, fixated on boosting your VO2 max, nailing your sleep score, extending your streaks. As a result, platforms optimize the measurable and miss the main opportunity: sustained support for a fuller life. \u00a0<\/p>\n

What we need are products designed for the many people whose expansive health goals are neither reflected nor well-served by a myopic obsession with metrics and dashboards. These health platforms should center agency and connection alongside exercise and recovery. They should translate small wins into confidence and next steps; foster real-world engagement with family, friends, community, and ideas; and let metrics serve the mission, not define it.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\tSTAT Plus: Is the White House\u2019s deal with pharma on GLP-1 drugs a game changer?\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

We have this opening because of hard-won science. After decades of R&D, GLP-1 medicines are delivering large, durable weight loss in rigorous trials<\/a>. Use is growing<\/a>, and sure to climb higher with lower prices and expanded Medicare\/Medicaid coverage. In the U.S., the obesity rate \u2014 having peaked near 40% in 2022 \u2014 now shows signs of edging down<\/a>, consistent with the early effects of these treatments.<\/p>\n

At the same time, research suggests aging is more malleable than once assumed<\/a>, and that ordinary habits \u2014 better sleep, regular movement, more thoughtful eating \u2014 can dampen the smoldering inflammation that raises risk for chronic disease from diabetes to Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/a><\/p>\n

While exercise, sleep, and sensible eating are part of the picture, most people aren\u2019t training for elite performance. They want to live better lives and pursue what is most meaningful to them. This often means more time with family and friends, space for hobbies, and participation in community \u2014 not relentlessly chasing metrics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Our deeper yearning for purpose and meaning, connection and participation has been largely neglected by health platforms<\/a> drawn to what\u2019s easiest to count rather than to what we actually value.<\/p>\n

The responsibility for living a fuller life is too important to outsource to a digital platform, but technology can support us far better than it has. It begins with humility: recognize that our ambitions exceed what performance metrics can capture, and resist the tendency, as Kate Crawford warns<\/a>, to let \u201cthe affordances of the tools become the horizons of truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Health platforms can help people live more expansively by enabling real-world engagement with communities, nature, and \u2014 above all \u2014 each other. Backed by solid evidence, these objectives, difficult as they are to measure, should be first-class priorities for any serious longevity platform.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most substantial opportunity for digital platforms is cultivating agency: the belief that you can change your life for the better<\/a>. Decades of work by University of Pennsylvania professor Martin Seligman<\/a> and colleagues show that agency is a robust psychological resource linked to healthier behavior, better coping, and greater well-being. It\u2019s the motivational currency of behavior change<\/a>, and it can be built deliberately.<\/p>\n

Agency grows when we see credible evidence that our choices make a difference in domains that matter to us. Platforms can help by making those inflections visible, turning small wins \u2014 like completing a ride or choosing a healthier entr\u00e9e \u2014 into evidence that accumulates into confidence. The opportunity is to capture and compound the \u201cagentic dividend<\/a>\u201d so it can be channeled into further positive action.<\/p>\n

A broader brief can transform fitness apps from a \u201cdashboard of my inadequacies,\u201d as Rachel Feintzeig poignantly put it<\/a>, into a gateway to a fuller life.<\/p>\n

Imagine: After a workout or healthy choice, a quick \u201cBank your win\u201d tap could 1) name the win (\u201cFinished even when I wanted to quit,\u201d \u201cChose the right effort today\u201d), 2) give it meaning (\u201cEnergy for the afternoon,\u201d \u201cKept a promise to myself\u201d), and 3) set a tiny reinvestment (\u201cBike tomorrow,\u201d \u201cText a friend to walk\u201d).<\/p>\n

In parallel, apps can offer proven, low-friction techniques \u2014 such as cognitive reframing and active-constructive responding \u2014 to strengthen confidence and follow-through. An example of a startup pursuing this direction is Lore Health<\/a>, which uses an artificial intelligence reflection partner<\/a> grounded in solution-focused therapy principles, community support, and modest financial incentives to prompt self-reflection and build resilience. (Disclosure: I\u2019m an adviser.)<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\tSTAT Plus: Trump announces deal with Lilly, Novo to expand access to weight loss drugs, cut prices<\/a><\/p>\n

Health platforms should widen beyond measurement to enable what I\u2019ve described<\/a> as \u201csoulful engagement\u201d \u2014 experiences that we feel more than we tally. Encourage us to do things with others like family fun runs, neighborhood trail walks, local volunteer projects, and activities with fellow hobbyists, perhaps facilitated through partnerships with organizations like AllTrails<\/a> and \u00a0Points of Light<\/a>, and startups like buildIRL<\/a>. Help engage the mind through on-platform \u201clearn and burn\u201d sessions, and partnerships with curated content apps like Kanopy<\/a>, CuriosityStream<\/a>, and The Great Courses<\/a>.\u00a0 After the activity, a light reflection \u2014 what did this make possible for you? (e.g., \u201creconnected with a friend,\u201d \u201ckept a promise to myself,\u201d \u201clearned something that energized me\u201d) \u2014 can reinforce agency without gamifying it, helping people see how meaningful experiences build capacity for the next healthy choice.<\/p>\n

Many pieces of a better platform already exist. Wearables like Oura and WHOOP can sense and summarize; Peloton can motivate at scale; Function Health is refining an early-detection model. Expand the scope of these platforms to embrace the broader human brief \u2014 connection, purpose, engagement, agency \u2014 and they can set the standard. If not, a new entrant with a more capacious vision will, or we\u2019ll keep assembling a patchwork of narrower apps to meet particular goals and needs.<\/p>\n

This moment was earned by science. Let\u2019s meet it with products that lift people up rather than\u00a0offer a reductive quest for mechanical perfection.<\/p>\n

David A. Shaywitz is a lecturer in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School, an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and founder of KindWellHealth, an initiative focused on advancing health through the science of agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump\u2019s recently announced deal with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk will likely widen GLP-1 access, lowering prices…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[37583,165,74,3458],"class_list":{"0":"post-289273","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-health-tech","9":"tag-mobile","10":"tag-technology","11":"tag-weight-loss"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}