There are smartphone applications for just about everything, and even things that you didn’t know you would want an app for. And it turns out that when it comes to losing weight and getting fit, some smartphone applications may actually be more successful than traditional dieting methods of the past. Obviously, just about every smartphone has access to applications for you to compile to do lists for your fitness and dieting goals, so recently some researchers in the United Kingdom decided to investigate the success rate of smartphone weight loss applications.
University of Leeds scientists were funded by the UK’s National Institute of Health Research, and they teamed up with software developers Blueberry Consultants to make ‘My Meal Mate’. The smartphone application helps users track their food intake, exercise and workout frequency, and weight loss progress. But unlike some other weight loss applications, My Meal Mate sends its users reminder text messages weekly to ensure that they are on track with their weight loss goals.
The study was published in the Journal of Internet Medical Research, and was conducted using 128 overweight volunteers. The weight-loss hopefuls were split into three main groups for a six month study time period. One group used only an online food diary to track their progress, a second group used a physical paper food diary for their weight loss plan and tracking, and the third group relied on the My Meal Mate app exclusively. While this was a limited study, it did point to the smartphone app being more successful than the other methods.
At the end of the six-month study, researchers measured several criteria, including weight change and compliance with their particular weight loss management tool. Those weight loss participants who used the online weight loss website and the paper food diary made entries only about once every week. But the smartphone application users employed their particular weight loss helper 3.5 times a week. As you can imagine, this led to the most significant amount of weight loss for the app users.
The My Meal Mate control group lost an average of 10 pounds, with the paper diary users dropping 6.5 pounds, and the website weight watchers losing approximately 3 pounds each. While there are plenty of weight watching applications available, My Meal Mate is the very first to integrate a substantially sized national food database known as Weight Loss Resources. This guarantees access to information on virtually any type of food My Meal Mate users will encounter, and the app is currently available on the UK’s National Health Service Choices website for free download.
