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

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Apr 1st, 2:00 PM Apr 1st, 3:00 PM

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.