Sadly, most of us can’t break out of our well-ingrained routines to handle even the baby steps. Fogg believes that technology could help us take those steps by personalizing a change program.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts offers two free apps that can help with implementing new habits: EatBetter GoalGetter, an iPhone app that tracks food intake and calories burned from working out, and GoalGetter Pedometer, which works like a pedometer to keep track of your steps walked, pace, and calories burned as well as progress made toward your goals.
MeYou Health, a Boston-based subsidiary of the medical education company Healthways, offers a free iPhone app called Munch 5-a-Day with which users can record and track their fruit and vegetable intake throughout the day, challenging themselves to eat more as the weeks progress. It also offers the free Monumental iPhone app to track flights of stairs climbed. The company took a stand against New Year’s resolutions, launching a new website called Anti-Resolution where users pledge not to resolve to, say, lose weight, and instead pledge to make a small behavior change - like sleeping seven to nine hours a night - that can help them achieve weight loss.
“Instead of committing to an end goal, we want you to commit to take a step that, if done consistently, will help you realistically accomplish that goal,’’ said Dr. Nathan Cobb, science adviser at MeYou Health.
But do all these apps, websites, and social networking devices really help us stick with new habits? A quick search of medical studies revealed a lack of evidence to make this claim.
“You’re right about that,’’ said Fogg. “At this point, we’ve seen mostly failures when it comes to proving that apps change health behaviors.’’
MeYou Health hasn’t published any studies showing that its technologies work, but Cobb told me the company was planning to launch a study over the next few months to measure whether those who complete its daily challenges wind up with more improvement in their health and well-being compared to those who don’t.
Fogg, though, countered that technologies to improve our health habits still need to be refined to identify the small challenges that we would enjoy doing every day - and to know when and how to make them progressively more difficult. The ideal app would remind us - at a convenient time - when to do that daily task.
“The ultimate goal of these apps should be to make a behavior change as simple as possible to incorporate into our lives,’’ Fogg said. “The technology isn’t there yet, but it’s heading in that direction.’’
