Smartphone can track calories, but can't keep the weight off

The lives of teenagers seem to revolve around their smartphones, from catching Pokémon to tweeting the phones are seldom out of their hands. The one thing that smartphones don’t help teenagers with is maintaining weight loss, according to a new study.

"We know that teens are on their phones, which gives us a way to intervene in the moment," said lead author and BYU psychology professor Chad Jensen. "We wanted to determine whether we could effectively use texting and a commercially-available smartphone app to help adolescents with weight loss."

The study evaluated the effects of smartphone intervention in the weight loss of teens and whether the technology could help in maintaining the weight loss. The 24-week test of 16 participants was split into two sections where the first 12 weeks included the smartphone app Daily Burn to track their eating and exercise and in-person treatment where teenagers shared their experiences with others and spoke about healthy eating, reading labels and working out as well as receiving text messages from their doctors three times a day for motivation. The last twelve weeks took away the in-person session and only included using the Daily Burn app and receiving the daily text messages from doctors.

In the first 12 weeks of the study, participants were able to lose an average of .08 points from their BMI, but their progress did not last. After the second 12 weeks without the in-person appointments, the self-monitoring rates fell from 50 to 16.8 percent and the weight was all gained back.

These results suggest that even with the assistance of smartphones, not matter how easy to use or accessible they are, they cannot help in maintaining weight loss. The interactions with others on a common goal of losing weight, however, can help. 

"The Daily Burn app doesn't include all the things we know are successful for weight control, like social support and the accountability that comes with that support. That support existed when the teens were meeting with other teens and sharing their experiences. And that was taken away," Jensen said. "You can't totally replace in-person social networks with virtual networks. But I think one of the future directions of mobile health technology is figuring out how to take advantage of people's naturally-occurring social networks and using family and friends to fill the role that meeting with a clinician would normally fill."