Weigh loss can bring a significant amount of health benefits and a recent study has found that a smartphone-app-based program is very effective and helping people getting desired results. The app-based program focuses on healthy diet and also tells about regular exercise that helped participants lose 13.4 pounds in six months.
The other important aspect of the new program is that it is cheaper than existing ones, and doesn’t require the in-person counseling and classes that make other programs tougher for people to start and stick with, according to the researchers.
Researchers of Northwestern University in Chicago conducted the study and it got published in the journal Obesity.
“With an app on a smartphone and a coach who sees the results, you get the help you need,” the lead researcher, Bonnie Spring, PhD, a professor of preventive medicine, psychiatry, psychology, and public health and the director of the Institute for Public Health and Medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine said
“There’s no need to take public transportation or drive to a class or pay for parking and childcare. It makes healthy weight loss accessible for people in rural areas, those who work at night, those who have mobility issues, or those who just can’t get out to classes.”
The new program – Optimization of Remotely Delivered Intensive Lifestyle Treatment for Obesity (Opt-IN) – is being facilitated by a smartphone app, with which users learn about healthy weight loss and log their daily food and exercise.
A weight loss coach gets regular reports from the app, including daily weigh-in information from the user’s digital scale. The program includes personal coaching every two weeks, plus support from a weight loss buddy (someone designated by the user and trained via webinar) and progress reports sent to each user’s primary care provider.
