Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Apr 14;23(1):696.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-023-15248-z.

A smartphone application as a personalized treatment tool for adolescents with overweight: an explorative qualitative study

Maurane Desmet #  1 , Sieske Franssen #  2 , Tugce Varol  3 , Alicia Fillon  4   5 , David Thivel  4   5 , Anne Roefs  6 , Caroline Braet  7
Affiliations

A smartphone application as a personalized treatment tool for adolescents with overweight: an explorative qualitative study

Maurane Desmet et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: The present study is the first step of a 3-year European project in which a tailored smartphone application will be developed and tested as a potential tool in the personalized treatment of children and adolescents with overweight.

Methods: In this study, 10 focus groups (n = 48 participants) were conducted in Belgium, The Netherlands and France with adolescents with overweight (12-16 years; n = 30) and parents of adolescents with overweight (n = 18) to investigate their perceptions on (un)healthy behavior, the drivers of these behaviors, and the needs of an eHealth application for weight loss. A thorough thematic analysis was performed using Nvivo12.

Results: Results show that adolescents with overweight have a well-articulated perspective on (un)healthy behavior and their needs. Parents underestimate their own influence on the (un)healthy behavior of their children and report difficulties in healthy lifestyle parenting, which makes their role as a coach rather ambiguous. Concerning the needs of an eHealth application, both parents and adolescents formulated some challenging expectations regarding the content and the format including information, a monitoring feature and features that increase participants' motivation to behave healthy. The results of this analysis will form the basis for designing a personalized eHealth application, which will be tested in a next phase.

Conclusion: We can conclude that adolescents have a well-articulated perspective on healthy and unhealthy behavior and their needs, whereby a new app could be of great help. It could function as a day-by-day diary and as a supportive coach.

Keywords: Adolescents; App; Overweight; Personalized; Treatment; eHealth.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

References

    1. Swinburn BA, et al. The global syndemic of obesity, undernutrition, and climate change: the Lancet Commission report. The lancet. 2019;393(10173):791–846. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32822-8. - DOI - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization., Overweight and obesity 2020.
    1. Rankin J, et al. Psychological consequences of childhood obesity: psychiatric comorbidity and prevention. Adolesc health Med Ther. 2016;7:125. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Van Vlierberghe L, et al. Psychiatric disorders and symptom severity in referred versus non-referred overweight children and adolescents. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2009;18(3):164–73. doi: 10.1007/s00787-008-0717-5. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Sahoo K, et al. Childhood obesity: causes and consequences. J family Med Prim care. 2015;4(2):187. doi: 10.4103/2249-4863.154628. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources