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Victoria Song, senior reviewer at The Verge and the author of Optimizer, the publication's weekly consumer health and wellness newsletter, argues that accuracy in health tracking is sometimes overrated.
Her evidence is a clinical encounter from about three years ago in which a doctor prescribed a specific outcome no consumer wearable could have identified: lose approximately five pounds of visceral fat stored above the belly button, to address borderline high cholesterol.
Song's weight was not the issue, her BMI was not the issue, and her subcutaneous fat — physically pinched on her lower abdomen — was not the issue either.
The Distinction That Matters Is Not Being Tracked Visceral fat and subcutaneous fat are not interchangeable clinically, and Song's case makes that plain. Subcutaneous fat is the visible, pinchable kind.
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