How to Lose Weight? Via SMS

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

A rather original method of dealing with obesity in children was proposed by American scientists. A special program has been developed especially for teenagers, taking into account their passion for communicating with the help of SMS messages. Thus, the child can control his diet and physical activity.

“Unfortunately, both adults and children who are trying to lose weight often do not adhere to the rules of self-control. They tend to keep a close eye on calories at first, but quit after a while,”says study lead author Jennifer Shapiro of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dr. Shapiro and her colleagues have suggested that using text messages instead of traditional paper diaries for self-control may be more successful in keeping children overweight.

The experiment involved 58 children aged 5 to 13 years and their parents. All the children were given pedometers to monitor their physical activity, they also had to monitor the time spent in front of the computer screen and the amount of high-calorie drinks drunk.

The participants in the experiment were divided into three groups - one every evening sent a "report" on the achievements of the day using SMS messages, the second kept a paper diary, the participants in the third - the control - group did not engage in self-control.

For each SMS message sent by a member of the first group, an automatically generated response was received, the content of which depended on the results achieved.

The results of the experiment showed that the "SMS-group" had a significantly lower dropout rate compared to the other two groups. If the dropout rate in the first group was only 28%, then in the "paper" group it was 61%, and in the control group - 50%. According to scientists, this indicates that SMS messages can be a useful tool in the fight against obesity in children and adolescents and will ultimately improve the health of the whole society.