14 DAY TRIAL // In fighting obesity, scientists say that self-monitoring of one's weight is an invaluable tool. And while most people do it at first, a large part of them gradually start dismissing the procedure, over the course of the diet. Health experts say that now cell phones could be used to monitor the weight fluctuations of obese children, seeing how they love sending and receiving text messages, and are also accustomed to the technology.
"Self-monitoring of calorie intake and expenditure and of body weight is extremely important for the long-term success of weight loss and weight control. Unfortunately, both children and adults who are trying to lose weight often do not adhere to self-monitoring. They tend to be good about self-monitoring at the start of a weight-loss effort, but then their adherence drops off over time," says the lead investigator of the current study, Jennifer R. Shapiro, PhD, who is also an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine.
Seeing how statistics show that some 19 percent of teenagers are overweight, and that more than 80 percent of those will later become obese adults, the issue of weight is becoming increasingly difficult to tackle, unless wider-scaled programs, aimed at regulating food consumption, are not employed by health experts.
The study, conducted by Shapiro at UNC Hospitals, showed that cell phones yielded better results in weight self-monitoring than conventional diaries, used by most people. To translate this into percentages, children using cell phones reported 43 percent more adherence to self-monitoring, whereas those using paper only reported 19 percent adherence.
The study showed that modern technology has great potential to be incorporated in the surveillance and monitoring of various childhood diseases, especially when the little patients are between 5 and 13 years old. The UNC scientists say they will continue their investigations on how cell phones can be used to monitor other diseases as well.