The headline everyone saw
The founder of a new wearable startup (Temple) posted a hiring call that included a body-fat eligibility rule—<16% for men and <26% for women—and it instantly went viral.
The part that matters more than the controversy
Temple says it’s building a wearable intended for elite performance athletes—described as an experimental device to measure brain blood flow “precisely, in real time, and continuously.”
If that direction sounds intense… it is. It’s a signal that wearables are chasing deeper physiology—not just steps and sleep scores.
The healthier takeaway (for normal humans)
This story is a good reminder of two truths:
- Body fat % is a flawed “identity metric.”
Measurement methods vary, bodies vary, and health isn’t a single number. Turning it into a gatekeeping badge can push people toward unhealthy pressure. - But performance tracking is getting more ambitious.
The next wave of wearables is trying to monitor “upstream” systems (circulation, recovery capacity, brain-body stress response). That could be useful—if it’s validated and used responsibly.
What you can do with this (without spiraling into metrics)
- Pick 1 metric that improves your life (sleep consistency, resting HR trend, weekly workouts).
- Ignore metrics that punish you (anything that triggers shame or extremes).
- Use tech as feedback—not self-worth.
The bottom line
Temple’s claims are still early-stage and heavily founder-described; treat the “brain blood flow wearable” as promising but unproven until independent validation and real-world performance data are public.
