What’s Fueling the Online Weight Loss Success?
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 1.9 billion adults were overweight in 2016. This global public health problem has reached alarming proportions in China, which significantly increases the risks of several diseases, including cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases.
Self-monitoring, which enhances self-awareness, promotes desired behaviors, and reduces unwarranted behaviors, can be achieved through setting specific targets and logging progress. Changes in body weight, exercise, and dietary intake are regularly monitored by participants of weight loss interventions. In fact, obese individuals who periodically monitor their diet and body weight have experienced more beneficial responses to interventions.
Researchers have both quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed the self-monitoring behaviors of dieters; however, few have utilized a mixed-methods approach for this purpose. Notable advantages of the mixed-methods approach include its ability to elucidate the association between weight loss and different self-monitoring indicators and reduce bias to ultimately develop reliable insights into self-monitoring.
Excerpted from News Medical Life Sciences
