Abstract 2
Effectiveness of Social Media
for Weight Reduction in Overweight Undergraduate Students
Advisors:
Piya Hanvoravongchai
Abstract:
Addressing overweight
in the population is an important public health challenge. Using social media
such as Facebook has been proposed as a platform to deliver weight-loss
interventions to influence behavior change to tackle obesity. The first
objective of this study is to conduct systematic review of evidence to
understand the effectiveness of social media interventions for weight reduction
among overweight and obese people. Databases for systematic review include
PubMed, Scopus and Cochrane Library databases. Only the studies using
Randomized Control Trials (RCT) published in English or Thai languages between
year 2005-2014 were included. The search terms related to Overweight and Social
Media were used. We found 436 related articles, of which only two RCT articles
passed the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The two articles used Facebook or
Twitter and there were both positive and negative results in term of weight
loss. The review indicates that there was still limited knowledge related to
this topic with unclear effect of social media on weight reduction. The second
objective is to compare the effectiveness of weight loss education and support
services using Facebook versus offline support systems. The 6-month study
period comprised of 4-month intervention period and 2-month follow-up period.
The 66 samples were undergraduate students from different faculties which were
randomly assigned to the experimental (social media) group or the control
(manual book) group. Each group comprised of 33 samples. Both received same
basic activities including nutrition and exercise learning, daily weighing
self-report, expert advice services and Q&A session. The difference between
the experimental and the control group was in the use of Facebook versus
offline support systems. Baseline characteristics of the two groups were not
different except in their average monthly income. The result found that the
experimental group was statistically more active in counseling activities and
there is statistically significant difference in the average increase in
knowledge score from 1st and 6th month. Both groups had an increase in
satisfaction scores at the end of 4th and 6th month. The intervention group has
significantly higher reduction in both the Body Mass Index (BMI) and Weight-to-Height
Ratio (WHtR) at 4th month compared to the reduction in the control group, with
the mean difference of 0.72 (0.13,1.30) and 0.00758 (0.00157,0.01358),
respectively. The differences, however, became insignificant at the 6th month
period. That means Facebook could be the tool to reduce the BMI and WHtR in the
intervention period but the effect might not be sustained. The findings from
this study should be considered for further public health planning and scaling
up of social media interventions for weight reduction.
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