Me, My Fitbit and My Daily Step Goal
I am obsessed with my Fitbit. And when I say obsessed, I don’t say it lightly; I mean it quite literally. Over the last six months, I have slowly become more and more attached to my Fitbit and now anticipate the little vibration on my wrist whenever I hit my daily step goal. I am even beginning to dread returning it to the school in January. I am not alone in my impulse to reach my daily step goal. David Sedaris, author and comedian, developed an obsession similar to my own with his Fitbit. His article “Stepping Out: Living the Fitbit Life” shows the idiosyncrasies that emerge when slightly ‘obsessive’ people own a fitness tracker, and how his Fitbit slowly consumed his daily thinking and way of life. Sedaris claims that with “people who are obsessive to begin with, the Fitbit is a digital trainer, perpetually egging us on” (Sedaris). I weirdly understand that on a semi-spiritual level. Until recently, I refused to take the tram to school because I needed to make sure that I hit my step goal, which is now 14,000 steps a day; although, I usually average around 17,000 to 19,000 steps a day. The vibration on my wrist no longer acts as a sense of relief, telling me that I can stop walking or that I have gotten an A+ on my fitness for the day; instead, the vibration only spurs me to do more whether it’s to walk to Carrefour to get yet another six pack of Diet Coke or to pace my room until I tack another thousand steps onto my daily total. I use my Fitbit almost as a measure of personal worthiness, considering whole days wasted if I didn’t reach my step or mile goal, and any movement or exercise done without my Fitbit to be wasted or useless—a thought echoed by Sedaris. After his Fitbit died, he originally thought that a life with no Fitbit would bring him great freedom and autonomy, freeing up afternoons that he usually spent walking, but he soon discovered that “walking twenty-five miles, or even running up the stairs and back, suddenly seemed pointless, since, without the steps being counted and registered, what use were they” (Sedaris). I look back on the last five months and wonder when did I become obsessed with my Fitbit? Was it the feeling of accomplishment that I got every time my wrist buzzed? Or was it the satisfactory reaction I got when I won weekly or daily challenges between my friends?
even blisters like this won’t stop me from reaching my step goal…. what is wrong with that picture?
The word obsession is usually used in a negative or derogatory context. Even my Google search for obsession turned up numerous sites from mental health websites or self-help guides on dealing with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or OCD for short. But, I don’t think of my obsession with my Fitbit as a negative issue—I like to think that it promotes me to physically healthier and more active. Which could just be a rationalization for being obsessed with a fitness tracker. Is my Fitbit really affecting my mental health? Is it even an obsession? I do think about it a lot during the day, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s altering my daily thinking (unless I haven’t met my step goal and it’s almost the end of the day). For the sake of argument, lets say that my Fitbit is truly an obsession and affecting my mental health. If that is the case, then why do my friends all joke with me about how crazy I get about reaching my daily goals, and treat it just as a comical quirk that I have?
According to the National Library of Medicine “mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being… affect[ing] how we think, feel and act as we cope with life… [and] helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices” (National Library of Medicine). If mental health is so essential and important to human’s survival and existence, then why is mental health rarely discussed or examined or even included in a discussion of overall health? Sure, I get asked if I have friends or if I feel more sad than usual whenever I get a yearly physical, but the questions never dig past the surface level of mental health related topics. Just browsing through the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or the DSM, reveals that there are hundreds of mental illnesses and I’ve never heard of most of them. The DSM IV defines mental disorders “as a clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in an individual and that is associated with present distress…or disability…or with significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability or an important loss of freedom” (Allen pg. 342). So according to this definition, mental disorders cause physical and emotional and mental pain and disability. We, as in the American society, have no problem discussing physical diseases like cancer or diabetes or cardiovascular disease, but when it comes to depression, addiction or ADHD, our culture suddenly becomes quiet. Mental health is an imperative part of human health but is largely ignored and misunderstood, with phrases like “I’m so depressed” or “she is so bipolar” thrown around loosely without regard to the adverse and damaging stigmas that are created and continued surrounding mental illness. According to WebMD, “millions of Americans live with various types of mental illness and mental health problems, such as social anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, drug addiction, and personality disorders” (WebMD). If so many people suffer from these illnesses, then why is it excluded from our discussion on health?
One in four Americans suffer from some type of mental illness and the dialogue surrounding causes, treatments or support groups is missing from most societies worldwide. According to Thu-Huong Ha in “How Should We Talk About Mental Health,” the two biggest obstacles preventing a useful and constructive discourse are stigma and discrimination. So if we wanted to begin discussing mental health disorders then the logical idea would be to begin dismantling the ignominy that comes with having a disorder like depression or anorexia or any other disorder. Ha begins his search for the answer by interviewing seven mental health experts and discovers that attempting to undo the stigma is difficult but not as difficult as imagined. He outlines some concepts that could help start the dialogue around mental illness in the U.S. and around the world—like avoiding correlations between criminality and mental illness, but do correlate mental illness and suicide, also avoid words like crazy or psycho and begin to even discussing one’s own experience with mental illness. Neuroscientist Sarah Caddick points out that “the minute you start talking about your mind, people get very anxious, because we associate [our mind] with being who we are, fundamentally with ‘us’ — us as a person, us as an individual, our thoughts, our fears, our hopes, our aspirations, our everything” (Ha). If our minds become “diseased” then our thoughts, personality and ideas become questionable, which throws off the entire basis for self-identity. Because are minds are so integral to ourselves, then logically mental health should take a prime position in determining the overall health of an individual. But, because our minds are also unknown and unmapped, mental health is an obscure and indefinite concept with no clear, concrete lines surrounding diagnoses.
Some people think that mental health or illness may not directly and immediately impact physical health, it is an important aspect of human health that is often ignored and pushed aside. By ending the stigma attached to illnesses like depression, schizophrenia, ADHD and countless others, the dialogue surrounding mental illness can be opened around the world. With more dialogue, there will come more understanding and knowledge, which contribute towards helping people who are suffering. By including mental health in the discussion of human health and not treating it like a pariah, humans have the opportunity to achieve truly optimum health.
Oh. And I still don’t consider my Fitbit a complete obsession. At least not yet.
collecting fitbit badges is a hobby of mine. getting new badges are some of the happiest days of the week
Works Cited
Ha, Thu-Huong. “How Should We Talk About Mental Health?” Ideas.ted.com. Ted, 18 Dec. 2013. Web. <http://ideas.ted.com/how-should-we-talk-about-mental-health/>.
“Mental Health Center.” Webmd,com. WebMD, n.d. Web. <http://www.webmd.com/mental health/>.
“Mental Health.” Medline Plus. U.S National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web.
Sedaris, David. “Stepping Out: Living the Fitbit Life.” New Yorker 30 June 2014: n. pag. Newyorker.com. The New Yorker, 30 June 2014. Web.
Wiley, Andrea S., and John S. Allen. Medical Anthropology: A Biocultural Approach. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.