W4CA Network

A study conducted by the University of North Carolina and the University of Heidelberg reported that SMS can help us to againsts obesity. As we know, many children, especially in western countries suffer from obesity.

Jenifer Sapiro, one of the experts involved in this study said that monitoring us to reduce weight is very important, but children and adults often fail to do so in the long term.
Therefore, the people with obesity have to survive on their diet rule. Usually, they use diary book to monitor their diet development. However, this research proved that monitoring diet via SMS is more effective.
This research was published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior and involved 58 children ages 5 to 13 years old.

They were divided into 3 groups.  The first group uses a SMS, a second group uses  paper and the last group does not monitor their diet. The first and second group should report their progress per day to the research team. For the second group members, they get a direct reply of suggestive motivasional statements to continue their effort of a good diet. These members get advantages of monitoring diet via SMS into 43 percent. Meanwhile, the first group members only get 19 percent.

In brief, we can conclude that motivational statements sent via SMS directly is proven being able to make them intend to their diet.