SMS could help children stay a healthy weight

Recent studies in the US have found that 19% of children aged between six and 11 are overweight. Other research indicates that 80% of overweight adolescents remain overweight or become obese as adults.

Researchers say that self-monitoring calorie intake, output and body weight is very important in the long-term success of weight loss and weight control. The study was published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.

However, the authors of the study say that self-monitoring drops off over time. Paper diaries are the traditional method of self-monitoring, but researchers thought that children's love of SMS could be a tool in self-monitoring intake and output.

Fifty-eight children aged 5 to 13 and their parents participated in the study, which was conducted at UNC Hospitals, and 31 families completed the study. The families took part in three group education sessions (one session weekly for three weeks) which aimed to encourage them to increase physical activity, decrease "screen time" (time spent watching television) and reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages. All of the children were given pedometers to track the number of steps they took each day, as well as goals to meet for the number of steps taken, minutes of screen time and number of sugar-sweetened beverages consumed per day.

The participating families were randomized into three groups: one that reported self-monitoring via cell phone text messaging, another group that reported self-monitoring in a paper diary, and a no-monitoring control group. The text messaging and paper diary groups answered three questions each day: (1) what was the number on your pedometer today?; (2) how many sugar-sweetened beverages did you drink today?; and (3) how many minutes of screen time did you have today?

Each family in the text messaging group was given a cell phone to be used only for study-related messages. They were instructed to send two messages per day (one from the parent and one from the child) reporting their answers to the three questions. Each time a message was sent, the sender received an immediate, automated feedback message based on what the sender reported. The researchers generated hundreds of feedback messages for the study. One example was, "Wow, you met your step and screen time goals - congratulations! What happened to beverages?"

The study results show that children in the text messaging group had a lower attrition rate from the study (28 percent) than both the paper diary (61 percent) and the control group (50 percent). They also had a significantly greater adherence to self-monitoring than the paper diary group, 43 percent versus 19 percent.