Fitness trackers: Your coach or your evil taskmaster?

Is your fitness tracker your happy coach? Does it make you feel better? More motivated?

Or is it … a parasite?

After all, a device maker somewhere is intimately involved in the life of your body: steps, exercise, heart rate, calories, and blood oxygen. That maker is sending you messages about your goals, your achievements, and your failures.

What does this relationship mean for you?

That’s what Julia Craven wondered when she realized she was obsessed with her watch metrics. Writing in FiveThirtyEight, Craven said she found herself anxious and focused on creating flawless health metrics — chasing perfection.

It stopped being a device that told her something about her health and started being a device that told her who she was as a person. If she missed a goal, she started feeling guilty, even lazy.

The fact is, it’s just a device.

It shouldn’t govern whether your weekend dog walk is a mile or two miles, fun or boring. The walk should be pleasurable for you (and the dog). Not everything is a fitness metric.

Sports psychology expert Michele Kerulis of Northwestern University says obsession and perfectionism with health metrics can actually make you ignore the real, physical signs your body is sending. The positive messages from fitness devices feel good and can help motivate, but when hitting goals becomes a cruel master, it’s time to reevaluate.