Lord Asta Y Z, Pan Wen-Harn
Institute of Population Health Sciences, National Health Research Institutes, Zhunan Town, Miaoli County, Taiwan.
Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
JMIR Form Res. 2023 May 25;7:e41944. doi: 10.2196/41944.
Obesity is a major risk factor of many chronic diseases. However, current obesity control policies and actions are not sufficient to halt the pandemic. It has been documented that more than half of all adults are not able to interpret their own weight status, not to mention to practice healthy lifestyles. Social media and interactive websites can reach people on a long-term basis, which may be used as intervention vehicles to build up cognition for weight control and to promote healthy behavior practices.
WAKE.TAIWAN is an ongoing web-based multifaceted healthy lifestyle promotion program with social media and interactive websites as the intervention vehicle. This study aimed to examine whether adults reached by our program would have increased awareness to their own anthropometric measures, correctly judge their body weight status, and practice healthy behaviors over time.
This study adopted a quasi-experimental design with web-based questionnaire surveys. The experimental group consisted of WAKE.TAIWAN Facebook group members aged 20-65 years who have used the interactive website health education resources (n=177). The group was further stratified into 2 subgroups based on their duration of participation (E1 group: duration <1 year; E2 group: duration ≥1 year). The control group consisted of other Facebook users (n=545) in the same age range who had not been exposed to the health education materials of this project. A total of 722 people (male: n=267, 37%; and female: n=455, 63%) participated in our survey in 2019. Data were analyzed to evaluate program effectiveness using a generalized linear model.
The proportion of people correctly interpreting their own weight status in the experimental group was greater than that of the control group (control group: 320/545, 58.7%; group E1: 53/88, 60%; and group E2: 64/89, 72%). The E2 experimental group was significantly better than the control group in paying attention to weight-related measures and in correctly interpreting their own weight status (odds ratio 1.73, 95% CI 1.04-2.89; P=.04). With respect to the behavioral stages of practicing healthy eating and active living, both experimental groups, E1 and E2, performed significantly better than the control group (group E1: P=.003 and P=.02; and group E2: P=.004 and P<.001, respectively).
This study demonstrates that the longer the participants were exposed to our social media-based programs, the higher the proportion of them that would have the correct judgement on their weight status and fall in the higher stages of healthy lifestyle behaviors. A longitudinal follow-up survey is in place to verify these findings.
肥胖是许多慢性疾病的主要风险因素。然而，当前的肥胖控制政策和行动不足以阻止这一流行趋势。据记载，超过一半的成年人无法解读自己的体重状况，更不用说践行健康的生活方式了。社交媒体和互动网站可以长期覆盖人群，可作为干预手段来增强体重控制认知并促进健康行为实践。
“WAKE.TAIWAN”是一项正在进行的基于网络的多方面健康生活方式促进项目，以社交媒体和互动网站作为干预手段。本研究旨在探讨参与我们项目的成年人随着时间推移，对自身人体测量指标的认识是否会提高，能否正确判断自己的体重状况，并践行健康行为。
本研究采用基于网络问卷调查的准实验设计。实验组由年龄在20 - 65岁、使用过互动网站健康教育资源的“WAKE.TAIWAN”脸书群组成员组成（n = 177）。该组根据参与时长进一步分为2个亚组（E1组：参与时长<1年；E2组：参与时长≥1年）。对照组由同一年龄段未接触过本项目健康教育材料的其他脸书用户组成（n = 545）。2019年共有722人（男性：n = 267，占37%；女性：n = 455，占63%）参与了我们的调查。使用广义线性模型对数据进行分析以评估项目效果。
实验组中正确解读自己体重状况的人群比例高于对照组（对照组：320/545，58.7%；E1组：53/88，60%；E2组：64/89，72%）。E2实验组在关注体重相关指标和正确解读自己体重状况方面显著优于对照组（优势比1.73，95%置信区间1.04 - 2.89；P = 0.04）。在践行健康饮食和积极生活的行为阶段方面，E1和E2两个实验组均显著优于对照组（E1组：P = 0.003和P = 0.02；E2组：分别为P = 0.004和P<0.001）。
本研究表明，参与者接触我们基于社交媒体的项目时间越长，对自己体重状况做出正确判断并处于健康生活方式行为较高阶段的比例就越高。正在进行纵向随访调查以验证这些发现。
