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. 2013 Apr 17;1(1):e3.
doi: 10.2196/mhealth.2164.

Health-e-call, a smartphone-assisted behavioral obesity treatment: pilot study

J Graham Thomas  1 , Rena R Wing
Affiliations

Health-e-call, a smartphone-assisted behavioral obesity treatment: pilot study

J Graham Thomas et al. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. .

Abstract

Background: Individual and group-based behavioral weight loss treatment (BWL) produces average weight loss of 5-10% of initial body weight, which improves health and wellbeing. However, BWL is an intensive treatment that is costly and not widely available. Smartphones may be a useful tool for promoting adherence to key aspects of BWL, such as self-monitoring, thereby facilitating weight loss while reducing the need for intensive in-person contact.

Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate smartphones as a method of delivering key components of established and empirically validated behavioral weight loss treatment, with an emphasis on adherence to self-monitoring.

Methods: Twenty overweight/obese participants (95% women; 85% non-Hispanic White; mean age 53.0, SE 1.9) received 12-24 weeks of behavioral weight loss treatment consisting of smartphone-based self-monitoring, feedback, and behavioral skills training. Participants also received brief weekly weigh-ins and paper weight loss lessons.

Results: Average weight loss was 8.4kg (SE 0.8kg; 9%, SE 1% of initial body weight) at 12 weeks and 10.9kg (SE 1.1kg; 11%, SE 1% of initial body weight) at 24 weeks. Adherence to the self-monitoring protocol was 91% (SE 3%) during the first 12 weeks and 85% (SE 4%) during the second 12 weeks.

Conclusions: Smartphones show promise as a tool for delivering key components of BWL and may be particularly advantageous for optimizing adherence to self-monitoring, a cornerstone of BWL.

Keywords: behavior; mobile phone; obesity; technology; weight loss.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Self-monitoring of food intake via the DailyBurn application.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Self-monitoring of personalized behaviors via the Health-E-Call application.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Tailored prompting to facilitate planned behavior.
Figure 4
Figure 4
DailyBurn feedback on dietary intake.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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