The Up Band

To anyone with weight problems, the small bracelet above could be the answer to your prayers. This idea, at least to me, seems both amazing and simple. The basic premise is that of a diet diary of sorts. Through motion technology, pulse monitoring, etc., the device monitors your level of physical activity, amount of sleep, etc.--all areas in which most Americans are lacking. This. through, your own shame about your inactivity is supposed to motivate you to actually get off your butt and do something.

I have to question this product. Besides the flaws pointed out in the article (the title is the link), the idea it is based on is flawed. The question of motivation is one that has been stunning health advisers for years. What could possibly make people not want to exercise, but actually do it? While this takes the humiliation to a new level, we are pretty much used to it. Even those of us, myself included, who are not exactly obese, we don't get even close to the one hour of recommended daily exercise. And this is with us hearing the statistics about the frequency of obese children and having education about the best kinds of exercise, etc. Instead of designing another pointless and ineffective Apple device, we should probably be expanding our governmental initiatives concerning obesity. Case in point: the recent decrease of obesity rates in Los Angeles County, California.

After a good wake-up call, these California schools decided to do something substantial against obesity. While we at Ewing High School are used to the nonavailability of sodas and such, these students were not. The way to lower obesity rates (at least in school), I think, is to remove the fatty options from the menus of the school. Most of the time, the reason that we buy these products is that we see them, not that we need them, and we might like other products just as well.

While the root of the problem is motivation, we have not come up with a way to solve that yet, and so we should be taking preventative measures that don't leave people's desires to chance. For example, a favorite type of chip for many (including myself) is SunChips. These chips while not labeled with the words "diet" or "baked" happen to be one of the healthiest chips in the market. And this is done through the careful picking of great, healthy ingredients, and making the best out of these ingredients. This goes to show you that the feat of healthy, good-tasting food is possible. Just like we require all smartphones to have an outlandish amount of capacities, we should require all foods to have a certain level of healthiness. Why should we care more about something that goes next to our ears more than something that we ingest.