Why does healthspan not factory in bike rides (or other activities) in “steps”. For instance if you ride 50 miles every single day but don’t walk much, it will show a dramatic negative affect on Whoop Age. This doesn’t make sense to me. Most physical activity should “count towards” the steps category, or more accurately the “steps” category should be renamed and recalculated using physical activity, not just steps.
Agreed, I find it strange that Whoop is all about evaluating YOUR data, but when it comes to Healthspan they are applying a single “10k steps per day” metric. For someone that is highly active AND those activities are being tracked meticulously in Whoop, why would Healthspan not take that into account and “ding” you for not getting 10k steps per day? I’m not a sedentary person, so that recommendation doesn’t really apply to me.
Whoops own AI agrees with me it’s absurd.
Yes, I have been perplexed from the start by Whoop’s inclusion and high weighting of step count into Healthspan. I guess it’s an ‘easy win’ as far as development cost and popularity goes, but it’s clinical relevance is at odds with individual healthspan - as you point out (and not to mention the void that all those people who do 10K desk treadmill, which doesn’t register at all, fall into).
Daily step count is almost a textbook example of a metric that is very powerful at a population level, but much, much less precise as an individual clinical predictor of longevity or health. As such, it’s inclusion as a pillar in healthspan seems questionable at best.
This has been a nagging issue for me as well. For the premium subscription being paid I shouldn’t have to be ignoring their analyses, even if they’re only proxies, Healthspan being one of them. I probably will be canceling my Life membership before it renews next week.