The connecting health and technology study: a 6-month randomized controlled trial to improve nutrition behaviours using a mobile food record and text messaging support in young adults

Abstract

BackgroundEarly adulthood represents the transition to independent living which is a period when changes in diet and body weight are likely to occur. This presents an ideal time for health interventions to reduce the effect of health problems and risk factors for chronic disease in later life. As young adults are high users of mobile devices, interventions that use this technology may improve engagement. The Connecting Health and Technology study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of tailored dietary feedback and weekly text messaging to improve dietary intake of fruit, vegetables and junk food over 6 months among a population-based sample of men and women (aged 18–30 years).MethodsA three-arm, parallel, randomized control trial was conducted. After baseline assessments, participants were randomized to one of three groups: A) dietary feedback and weekly text messages, B) dietary feedback only or C) control group. Dietary intake was assessed using a mobile food record App (mFR) where participants captured images of foods and beverages consumed over 4-days at baseline and post-intervention. The primary outcomes were changes in serves of fruits, vegetables, energy-dense nutrient-poor (EDNP) foods and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB). The intervention effects were assessed using linear mixed effect models for change in food group serves.ResultsYoung adults (n = 247) were randomized to group A (n = 82), group B (n = 83), or group C (n = 82). Overall, no changes in food group serves for either intervention groups were observed. An unanticipated outcome was a mean weight reduction of 1.7 kg (P = .02) among the dietary feedback only. Men who received dietary feedback only, significantly reduced their serves of EDNP foods by a mean of 1.4 serves/day (P = .02). Women who received dietary feedback only significantly reduced their intake of SSB (P = .04) by an average of 0.2 serves/day compared with controls.ConclusionsTailored dietary feedback only resulted in a decrease in EDNP foods in men and SSB in women, together with a reduction in body weight. Using a mobile food record for dietary assessment and tailored feedback has great potential for future health promotion interventions targeting diet and weight in young adults.Trial RegistrationAustralian Clinical Trials Registry Registration number: ACTRN12612000250831.

Multi-site trial using short mobile messages (SMS) to improve infant weight in low-income minorities: Development, implementation, lessons learned and future applications

“…18,19 The use of SMS has shown tremendous potential to reach new mothers, particularly those with fewer resources. 20,21 Interventions using SMS may increase participant retention rates 19,22,23 and may be cost effective, sustained over time and embedded into programs such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).…”

A Mobile-Based Diet Monitoring System for Obesity Management

“…By monitoring the individual’s energy production from food and energy expenditure from exercise, our system is able to provide users their real-time energy balance and recommendations about the best eating time and food portion. After detecting user’ eating habits, the intervention module can also generates timely warnings and feedback, as recommended in Kerr DA [5]. Below we will briefly describe the design of each component and focus on the technical implementation mainly on food recognition and assessment and energy minoring in this study.…”

“…In contrast to the traditional manual food logging that is time consuming and hard to sustain [2], smartphones applications such as MyFitnessPal, LoseIt and Fooducate, have demonstrated high level of usability [3,4] by providing effective dietary feedback [5]. However, many of these applications require significant amount of manual input from users and poorly perform in assessing the exact ingredients and food portion of a meal [6], which has hindered users’ experience in a long run.…”

Mobile Ecological Momentary Diet Assessment Methods for Behavioral Research: Systematic Review (Preprint)

“…A total of 10 studies described event-contingent mEMDA methods used in nutrition-related research [52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61]. Additional approach details were extracted from other related journal articles [43,[62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73].…”