Presentation Type
Poster
Keywords
mHealth, applications, fitness, nutrition, randomized control trials
Department
Psychology
Major
Psychology
Abstract
The present research examined the effectiveness of mobile Health (mHealth) fitness and nutrition applications where effectiveness was defined as eliciting behavior changes towards national guidelines for minutes of weekly exercise and daily water consumption. In this study, it was hypothesized that an mHealth Application condition using the MyFitnessPal application would be more effective at altering water consumption and exercise behaviors when compared to a Daily Monitoring condition and a Paper Dairy condition. All 92 participants of this randomized trial participated in a one-week baseline collection and three weeks of intervention for a total of four weeks of participation. Results indicated that there were no significant differences in behavior change scores across conditions. A significant difference was found in RAND-36 General Health change scores between the Daily Monitoring and Paper Diary conditions only, indicating that the Daily Monitoring condition experienced a greater increase in the General Health subscale score than the Paper Diary condition. The results of this study do not offer evidence of the effectiveness of the MyFitnessPal application in eliciting behavior changes. Additional randomized trials are needed to explore fitness and nutrition application effectiveness.
Faculty Mentor
Dr. Cindy Miller-Perrin
Funding Source or Research Program
Academic Year Undergraduate Research Initiative
Location
Waves Cafeteria
Start Date
1-4-2016 2:00 PM
End Date
1-4-2016 3:00 PM
Included in
The Effect of Mobile Health Applications on Health Behaviors: A Pilot Study
Waves Cafeteria
The present research examined the effectiveness of mobile Health (mHealth) fitness and nutrition applications where effectiveness was defined as eliciting behavior changes towards national guidelines for minutes of weekly exercise and daily water consumption. In this study, it was hypothesized that an mHealth Application condition using the MyFitnessPal application would be more effective at altering water consumption and exercise behaviors when compared to a Daily Monitoring condition and a Paper Dairy condition. All 92 participants of this randomized trial participated in a one-week baseline collection and three weeks of intervention for a total of four weeks of participation. Results indicated that there were no significant differences in behavior change scores across conditions. A significant difference was found in RAND-36 General Health change scores between the Daily Monitoring and Paper Diary conditions only, indicating that the Daily Monitoring condition experienced a greater increase in the General Health subscale score than the Paper Diary condition. The results of this study do not offer evidence of the effectiveness of the MyFitnessPal application in eliciting behavior changes. Additional randomized trials are needed to explore fitness and nutrition application effectiveness.