I don't disagree with you about diet being half the battle for somebody contributing to exercise and a healthier lifestyle.
However, I think you're missing the point behind the rings. They are used to motivate the user to keep Press onward...
Well, it's way more than half the battle. The problem is that most of the health and fitness 'common wisdom' is quite out of date. It's good to get some exercise (especially certain types), but if your diet is typical for the USA, or follows the 'food pyramid' then you're probably going to have some issues even if you run a marathon each week.
Pressing onward to what? That's my point. To move around some during the day, rather than sitting in the chair for 12 hours? Then great. Beyond that, it isn't measuring anything useful... and possibly harmful if one thinks that by 'closing the rings' they are necessarily getting healthier. Healthier than an absolute couch potato, yes. Overall health, not so much.
I guess this is a cool and a good thing. But it's not really that hard to close all the rings as one can define how many calories you need to burn each day in order to close the red ring which is the "hardest" of the three. Did Apple set any minimum value for active burnt calories or could employees simply set it to 10 calories a day and get it auto-completed?
Even then, calories aren't a good health measurement and such ways of measuring calorie use are, afaik, horribly inaccurate (even if knowing that data were useful).
I suppose this kind of gamification helps motivate certain people, but I'm guessing it's the kind of motivation that doesn't stick. I want to be surprised that one's own health and happiness aren't enough to motivate some people to eat right and exercise, but since we have an epidemic of folks not doing that, I guess I can't be surprised. I'm just perplexed.
Whether the motivation sticks or not, it's impossible to out-exercise (especially in the ways the Watch can track) other poor lifestyle choices (i.e.: diet, sleep). If it's about more than a game, it's a small (likely inaccurate) part of the big picture.
I'd have an issue with trying to finish this. I can almost never seem to close the exercise ring. I went on a 60 minute bike ride the other day with hills and it gave me a total of 12 mins on the exercise ring.
Yea, it's fairly meaningless in terms of measuring anything useful. If you love bike riding (I do at times), that's great. But, if you're after health impact, you'll get more out of 5-10 minutes of strength training a few times per week.
A podcast I'd highly recommend if you're curious why I'm saying some of the stuff I am above, and are concerned about your health:
http://theshawnstevensonmodel.com/podcasts/
Most of what we think we know about how to eat right, why obesity is such a problem, and how to get in shape, is just plain wrong. Eat less, exercise more is a fallacy... because our bodies aren't simplistic calorie machines, it's about hormones.