Lee Jisan, Kim Jeongeun
1 College of Nursing, Seoul National University , Seoul, Republic of Korea.
2 Interdisciplinary Program of Medical Informatics, Seoul National University , Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Telemed J E Health. 2016 May;22(5):410-8. doi: 10.1089/tmj.2015.0067. Epub 2015 Nov 5.
Although a lot of people continuously try to lose weight, the obesity rate has remained high: 36.9% of males and 38.0% of females worldwide in 2013. This suggests the need for a new intervention.
In this study, we designed a smartphone application, With U, to aid weight loss by using an offline social network of friends and an online social network, Facebook. To determine the effects of With U, this study was designed as a one-group pretest-posttest design. Overweight, obese, and severely obese adults 20-40 years old, along with their friends, participated in this study. A total of 10 pairs attempted to lose weight for 4 weeks. We used a questionnaire to measure general characteristics, motivation, and intent to continue to use With U, and the Inbody720 (Biospace, Seoul, Republic of Korea) body composition analyzer was used to measure physical characteristics. In addition, we briefly interviewed the participants about their experience.
We observed statistically significant effects in terms of motivation to lose weight and the amount of weight loss. Changes in physical characteristics beyond weight loss also showed positive trends. Also, we discovered some interesting facts during the interviews. The weight loss effect was greater when the team members met more and the relationship between the challengers was more direct and intimate.
The application With U, designed and developed to allow friends to challenge each other to lose weight, affected both motivation to lose weight and the amount of weight loss. In the future, effects of smartphone applications for health management with social networks need to be studied further.
尽管很多人不断尝试减肥，但肥胖率依然居高不下：2013年全球男性肥胖率为36.9%，女性肥胖率为38.0%。这表明需要一种新的干预措施。
在本研究中，我们设计了一款智能手机应用程序“With U”，通过利用朋友的线下社交网络和在线社交网络Facebook来辅助减肥。为了确定“With U”的效果本研究设计为单组前测-后测设计。20至40岁的超重、肥胖和重度肥胖成年人及其朋友参与了本研究。共有10对参与者尝试减肥4周。我们使用问卷来测量一般特征、动机以及继续使用“With U”的意愿，并使用Inbody720（韩国首尔Biospace公司）人体成分分析仪来测量身体特征。此外，我们还就参与者的体验进行了简短访谈。
我们观察到在减肥动机和减肥量方面有统计学上的显著效果。除体重减轻外，身体特征的变化也呈现出积极趋势。而且，我们在访谈中发现了一些有趣的事实。当团队成员见面次数更多且挑战者之间的关系更直接、更亲密时，减肥效果更好。
为让朋友间相互挑战减肥而设计和开发的应用程序“With U”，对减肥动机和减肥量都产生了影响。未来，需要进一步研究具有社交网络功能的智能手机健康管理应用程序的效果。
