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Text Messages Used To Help Kids Avoid Obesity

by Dan Reilly on November 12, 2008 at 12:30 PM


While it's amazing to think that elementary school children would ever need to send text messages, a new study says the technology can be used to help those not-so-wee tykes among them lose weight. To combat childhood obesity, a researcher at the UNC School of Medicine used texting as part of a three week family program to encourage children to use a pedometer to track their daily amount of steps while limiting their TV time and sugary beverage intake.

The children, aged 5 to 13, were split into three groups: ones who used texting to monitor their daily progress and receive feedback, ones who used a paper diary for self-monitoring, and a control group that didn't monitor anything. The first two groups had to answer three questions a day about their pedometer readings, TV watching, and beverage consumption. The families using the researcher-provided cell phones would send two texts per day, one each from parent and child, and would receive feedback in turn, such as "Wow, you met your step and screen time goals – congratulations! What happened to beverages?"

Not surprisingly, the texting method worked best with only a 28-percent attrition rate as opposed to 61-percent with the diary and 50-percent with no monitoring. The texters were also more committed, with 43-percent sticking to the program versus 19-percent with the diary. On the other hand, the study doesn't say why texting works any better than a phone call or how much weight the kids lost since they would never, ever lie at that age. Still, there are way too many overweight kids out there, so it's a promising step. [Source: Physorg.com]

Tags: health, obesity, texting, weight loss, WeightLoss

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