Innovations in the Use of Interactive Technology to Support Weight Management

Abstract

New and emerging mobile technologies are providing unprecedented possibilities for understanding and intervening on obesity-related behaviors in real time. However, the mobile health (mHealth) field has yet to catch up with the fast-paced development of technology. Current mHealth efforts in weight management still tend to focus mainly on short message systems (SMS) interventions, rather than taking advantage of real-time sensing to develop just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAIs). This paper will give an overview of the current technology landscape for sensing and intervening on three behaviors that are central to weight management: diet, physical activity, and sleep. Then five studies that really dig into the possibilities that these new technologies afford will be showcased. We conclude with a discussion of hurdles that mHealth obesity research has yet to overcome and a future-facing discussion.

Keywords: Adaptive interventions; Just-in-time; Obesity; Real-time; Sensors; mHealth.

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest

D. Spruijt-Metz, C.K.F. Wen, G. O’Reilly, M. Li, S Lee, B.A. Emken, U. Mitra, M. Annavaram, G. Ragusa, and S. Narayanan declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1

Display of ‘sedentary analyzer’ KNOWME app that appears on the study phone. The app collects data from KNOWME’s Bluetooth enabled wearable sensors, analyses the data on the fly, and sends it to the secure KNOWME website and dashboard.