Tracking weight reduction with digital health tools may help reduce obesity
05 March, 2021
While the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing obesity epidemic takes at least 2.8 million lives every year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that the prevalence of obesity improved from 30.5% in 1999-2000 to 42.4% in 2017-2018.
Those who have overweight or obesity can reduce their overall mortality risk by slimming down. Weight damage also lowers the risk of cancer, metabolic syndrome, and other conditions. A 2018 CDC report found that in 2013-2016, 66.7% of adults with obesity attemptedto lose weight.
Difficulty losing weight
Various psychological and biological factors influence weight loss.
A 2019 study in the journal BMC Public Health shows that persons with obesity were more lucrative in losing weight if they reported being personally motivated to lose excess weight after acquiring a diagnosis of obesity and when their doctors acknowledged their past efforts to lose excess weight.
Managing realistic expectations is also necessary for slimming down. According to 1 2018 study, realistic goals of 5-10% weight reduction differed from a person’s ideal weight. The authors advise that people with extreme and morbid obesity had been at higher threat of creating these unrealistic goals of over 10% weight loss.
Additionally, there are biological reasons for not losing weight. A study included in Medical News Today in 2017 shows that faulty signals in the mind could enhance obesity by reducing the amount of excessive fat burned after eating.
Mental health concerns may also worsen attempts at losing weight. A 2018 study shows that stress decreased motivation to exercise and improved cravings and overall excess weight gain. A small study, also from 2018, shows that managing stress levels contributed to weight loss and decreased the participants’ overall body mass index (BMI).
Although losing weight could be difficult, it isn't impossible. In a recently available paper, researchers showcase evidence suggesting that digital technologies work in managing weight damage.
The review appears in the journal Obesity, which may be the Obesity Society’s flagship journal. Michele L. Patel, Ph.D. - from the Stanford Prevention Research Center at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California - may be the first and corresponding writer of the review.
Digital self-monitoring
The authors of the new research reviewed past data from 39 trials that used digital self-monitoring over 12 or more weeks of weight loss interventions in people with obesity or overweight.
The participants used the next digital wellbeing technologies to control weight loss:
- websites: 66%
- apps: 33%
- wearable devices: 16%
- e-scales: 12%
- SMS texts: 12%
- personal digital assistants: 3%
- interactive voice response technology: 3%
Altogether, the team observed 67 different permutations of digital self-monitoring in the studies. Excess weight was tracked in 48 (72%) of these.
Overall, 74% of interventions, including digital self-monitoring, had been positively correlated with weight damage. Association with weight loss did not vary very much between the type of self-monitoring, such as for example diet, exercise, excess weight, or a combination of these.
Success waned as time passes, however. Individuals who participated in self-monitoring during short weight loss interventions (under 12 months) experienced 84% success, weighed against those following longer-term pounds loss interventions (over 12 months), who had 47% success in weight reduction.
The findings indicate modest engagement with daily digital health technology tracking. Self-monitoring on half of most days or even more was achieved 58% of the time, while this fell to simply 9% for obtaining self-monitoring on 3 out of 4 days (75%).
“Longer intervention duration tempered this relationship, however, suggesting that self-monitoring could be much less effective for weight loss over time either because engagement declines or because rates of excess fat damage slow despite similar examples of engagement,” write the study authors.
People found it better to make recordings about in least 50% of days for weight monitoring (65%) than diet (58%) or physical activity (50%).
Tracking weight damage progress was bigger in people who applied digital technology above paper-based methods.
The researchers observed higher engagement rates with passive digital technology, such as wearable technologies and e-scales, than with active technology, such as for example apps requiring persons to input numbers manually.
The authors suggest that is basically because passive self-monitoring is much easier to incorporate into one’s day to day routine.
Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com