Tell Me What to Eat – Design and Evaluation of a Mobile Companion Helping Children and Their Parents to Plan Nutrition Intake

Xu, Ran; Cvijikj, Irena Pletikosa; Kowatsch, Tobias; Michahelles, Florian; Büchter, Dirk; Brogle, Björn; Dintheer, Anneco; I'Allemand, D; Maaß, Wolfgang

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-14112-1_9

Cited by 6 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Relevant mHealth solutions and evaluation studies are reported in [49,50], but they were targeting families of children or adolescents aged 10-17 years. All our participants used the app frequently over the intervention weeks, reporting positive effects in terms of children compliance with nutrition and physical activity goals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, to our knowledge, this study is one of the first to assess the usability and feasibility of a mHealth app intervention targeting families of overweight children aged 7-12 years over a 6-weeks' deployment and follow-up period in a primary care setting. Relevant mHealth solutions and evaluation studies are reported in [ 49 , 50 ], but they were targeting families of children or adolescents aged 10-17 years. All our participants used the app frequently over the intervention weeks, reporting positive effects in terms of children compliance with nutrition and physical activity goals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Design of a Mobile App for Nutrition Education (TreC-LifeStyle) and Formative Evaluation With Families of Overweight Children

Gabrielli¹,

Dianti²,

Maimone³

et al. 2017

JMIR Mhealth Uhealth

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BackgroundNutrition and diet apps represent today a popular area of mobile health (mHealth), offering the possibility of delivering behavior change (BC) interventions for healthy eating and weight management in a scalable and cost-effective way. However, if commercial apps for pediatric weight management fail to retain users because of a lack of theoretical background and evidence-based content, mHealth apps that are more evidence-based are found less engaging and popular among consumers. Approaching the apps development process from a multidisciplinary and user-centered design (UCD) perspective is likely to help overcome these limitations, raising the chances for an easier adoption and integration of nutrition education apps within primary care interventions.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to describe the design and development of the TreC-LifeStyle nutrition education app and the results of a formative evaluation with families.MethodsThe design of the nutrition education intervention was based on a multidisciplinary UCD approach, involving a team of BC experts, working with 2 nutritionists and 3 pediatricians from a primary care center. The app content was derived from evidence-based knowledge founded on the Food Pyramid and Mediterranean Diet guidelines used by pediatricians in primary care. A formative evaluation of the TreC-LifeStyle app involved 6 families of overweight children (aged 7-12 years) self-reporting daily food intake of children for 6 weeks and providing feedback on the user experience with the mHealth intervention. Analysis of the app’s usage patterns during the intervention and of participants’ feedback informed the refinement of the app design and a tuning of the nutrition education strategies to improve user engagement and compliance with the intervention.ResultsDesign sessions with the contribution of pediatricians and nutritionists helped define the nutrition education app and intervention, providing an effective human and virtual coaching approach to raise parents’ awareness about children’s eating behavior and lifestyle. The 6 families participating in the pilot study found the app usable and showed high compliance with the intervention over the 6 weeks, but analysis of their interaction and feedback showed the need for improving some of the app features related to the BC techniques “monitoring of the behavior” and “information provision.”ConclusionsThe UCD and formative evaluation of TreC-LifeStyle show that nutrition education apps are feasible and acceptable solutions to support health promotion interventions in primary care.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of a Mobile App for Nutrition Education (TreC-LifeStyle) and Formative Evaluation With Families of Overweight Children

Gabrielli¹,

Dianti²,

Maimone³

et al. 2017

JMIR Mhealth Uhealth

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the study by Saez et al [ 43 ], the SMS intervention was solely aimed at motivating participants to attend face-to-face sessions. One study focused only on diet [ 47 ], and 2 on only physical activity [ 54 , 67 ]. Similar to the study by Saez et al [ 43 ], the SMS component described by Herget et al [ 67 ] was primarily aimed at encouraging attendance at physical activity sessions.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although adherence was the primary outcome for just 1 study [ 57 ], a further 12 studies reported adherence with the intervention as an outcome. Adherence was predominantly measured using the data for direct engagement with the technology [ 46 , 47 , 66 , 70 ], as well as responses to SMS communication [ 41 , 55 , 57 , 59 , 62 ], attendance at the face-to-face sessions [ 57 , 69 ], and the level of self-monitoring [ 25 , 50 ]. Nguyen et al [ 73 ] reported facilitator adherence to the program protocols (ie, fidelity) as well as participant engagement with the intervention as a whole; however, these were not specific to the mHealth component (SMS).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mobile Health for Pediatric Weight Management: Systematic Scoping Review

Tully

Burls

Sørensen

et al. 2020

JMIR Mhealth Uhealth

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Background The prevalence and consequences of obesity among children and adolescents remain a leading global public health concern, and evidence-based, multidisciplinary lifestyle interventions are the cornerstone of treatment. Mobile electronic devices are widely used across socioeconomic categories and may provide a means of extending the reach and efficiency of health care interventions. Objective We aimed to synthesize the evidence regarding mobile health (mHealth) for the treatment of childhood overweight and obesity to map the breadth and nature of the literature in this field and describe the characteristics of published studies. Methods We conducted a systematic scoping review in line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for scoping reviews, by searching nine academic databases in addition to gray literature for studies describing acceptability, usability, feasibility, effectiveness, adherence, or cost-effectiveness of interventions assessing mHealth for childhood obesity treatment. We also hand searched the reference lists of relevant articles. Studies aimed at the prevention of overweight or obesity were excluded, as were studies in which mHealth was not the primary mode of treatment delivery for at least one study arm or was not independently assessed. A random portion of all abstracts and full texts was double screened by a second reviewer to ensure consistency. Data were charted according to study characteristics, including design, participants, intervention content, behavior change theory (BCT) underpinning the study, mode of delivery, and outcomes measured. Results We identified 42 eligible studies assessing acceptability (n=7), usability (n=2), feasibility or pilot studies (n=15), treatment effect (n=17), and fidelity (n=1). Change in BMI z-scores or percentiles was most commonly measured, among a variety of dietary, physical activity, psychological, and usability or acceptability measures. SMS, mobile apps, and wearable devices made up the majority of mobile interventions, and 69% (29/42) of the studies specified a BCT used. Conclusions Pediatric weight management using mHealth is an emerging field, with most work to date aimed at developing and piloting such interventions. Few large trials are published, and these are heterogeneous in nature and rarely reported according to the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials for eHealth guidelines. There is an evidence gap in the cost-effectiveness analyses of such studies.

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“…It recommends a diet based on the user profile including age, weight, height, necessary energy, and activity. In "Tell Me What to Eat" project [46], another mobile application has been designed to improve nutrition consumption in obese children. It presents a list of appropriate dishes with recipes based on the available nutrients and user preferences.…”

Section: Nutrition Monitoring Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infant’s growth and nutrition monitoring system

2020

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With the progress of information technology and the prevalence of smartphones, an opportunity to improve the children health services has been arisen. In this regard, many applications have been developed, most of which are not comprehensive enough to meet all of the needs in taking care of children. In this paper, a context-aware infant growth and nutrition monitoring system is proposed, designed, and developed under a pediatrician's supervision, considering the latest medical references. The system targets healthy infants and helps parents to keep their infants healthy. The proposed system has the growth and nutrition monitoring, health monitoring, and doctor intervention functionalities. It is designed using the Attribute-Driven Design method and consists of parent, doctor and cloud tiers. The parent and doctor tiers are implemented by Android on smartphones. The Software Architecture Analysis Method is used to evaluate the proposed system architecture. Finally, it is compared with other related systems. According to the comparison results, the proposed system provides more comprehensive and extensive features and capabilities, which meet the needs in taking care of children.

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Tell Me What to Eat – Design and Evaluation of a Mobile Companion Helping Children and Their Parents to Plan Nutrition Intake

Cited by 6 publications

References 14 publications

Design of a Mobile App for Nutrition Education (TreC-LifeStyle) and Formative Evaluation With Families of Overweight Children

Design of a Mobile App for Nutrition Education (TreC-LifeStyle) and Formative Evaluation With Families of Overweight Children

Mobile Health for Pediatric Weight Management: Systematic Scoping Review

Infant’s growth and nutrition monitoring system

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