How Fitbit Is Cashing in on the High-Tech Fitness TrendHow the device manufacturer is building a following by enhancing users' workouts through gaming and community-building.

With wearable devices that track every footstep and exercise milestone, Americans are keeping tabs on their ownfitnesslike never before. Besides offering increasingly detailed data, companies likeFitbitare enhancing users' workouts through gaming and community-building. It's an inescapable lifestyle trend--and VCs are taking notice.

Since the advent of the cubicle and the golden age of the vending machine, Americans, as has been widely noted, have been getting fatter. Some 90 million people are classified as obese, and many, many more are professional couch potatoes. The sad truth, uncovered in a study led by kinesiology researchers at theUniversity of Tennessee,是这样的:普通成年人只需要5,117 steps per day--barely half the daily steps recommended by the U.S. Surgeon General.