Mobile Apps Help Men Lose More Weight, Study Finds
Published at
Comstock/Thinkstock(CHICAGO) — Losing weight is hard for men — but a new study shows that mobile technology can help.
Researchers from Northwestern University showed that men who used a mobile phone app and had a coach monitoring their intake and exercise lost nearly nine pounds on average over a year, while those who just wrote calories down on paper had no weight loss.
“The advantage of an app is that you can enter what you are eating in real time and get feedback immediately about how many calories you have consumed,” says Bonnie Spring, Northwestern’s Director of Preventive Medicine.
Spring added that having the behavioral coach helped individuals overcome weight loss challenges by being a “chronic hoverer.”
According to the study, offering health classes nearly doubled the effect for those using the app.
“If the people using the app also went to 80 percent of those classes, then they lost 15 pounds and kept it off for a year,” Spring says.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio