Indian youth set custom goals as fitness apps turn unfit

Young Indians did not blindly follow fitness apps and instead negotiated with them by altering targets around consuming extra sweets during festivals and family meals, and workouts during humid days, a research study by IIIT Hyderabad found.The study from IIIT Hyderabad, presented at CHI 2026, found that this adjustment was not laziness but a rational response to tools built for a different world."We get that these applications were probably built in the Silicon Valley, but they also serve one-fourth of the world's population, which follows Asian culture. A lot of our participants reported going offline and manually tracking fitness, either on an excel sheet, or probably by texting a friend, because these fitness apps do not understand the food combinations, cultural complexities, the lunar calendars we follow or even season-associated foods we consume," Prof. Nimmi Rangaswamy, heading the research from IIIT-H, told TOI.Most global fitness apps struggled to interpret dal and roti combinations, variable use of ghee, late family dinners and the heat outside, the study outlined.Dr Sudhir Kumar, consultant neurologist and public health advocate at a private hospital in the city, said it was very important to adapt and not rely on apps completely, adding that many of his patients complained that apps felt ‘out of sync' with their real lives. "Fitness apps can help, but strict, app-driven diets rarely work in the long term," he said. "Indian meals are diverse and not easily quantifiable. Social eating, festivals, travel, and family habits influence diet heavily," he added.He advised treating the apps' data as a ‘guide', and not a ‘dictator of food habits'. "Weekly trends matter more than daily numbers. Focus on basics such as steps / activity, protein intake and sleep. And combine this data with body signals, energy, hunger, and recovery," he said, warning that chasing targets rigidly could lead to burnout or guilt.The authors of the study highlighted the importance of more context-driven designing. "Of course, the apps cannot be designed purely on the basis of Indian habits, but we aim to make developers be more context-sensitive," Prof Rangaswamy noted.
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