Understanding Weight Change Behaviors through Online Social Networks

Abstract

Online Social Networks (OSNs) provide a good way to make connections with people with similar interests and goals. In particular, health-centered OSNs are emerging to provide knowledge and support for those interested in managing their own health. This paper provides an empirical analysis of a health OSN, which allows its users to record their foods and exercises, track their diet progress toward weight-change goals, and socialize and group with each other for community support. Based on about five month data collected from more than 107,000 users, the authors studied their weigh-in behaviors and tracked their weight-change progress. The authors found that the users’ weight changes correlated positively with the number of weigh-ins, the number of their friends, and their friends’ weight-change performance. The authors also show that the users’ weight changes have rippling effects in the OSN due to social influence. The strength of such online influence and its propagation distance appear to be greater than those in a real-world social network.

Changing health behaviors through social and physical context awareness

“…For example, in the FatSecret study we found that members who had similar weight and weight loss goals most likely formed friendships [6]. Other online health communities, such as PatientsLikeMe, have adopted the same principles.…”

“…On the other hand, we conducted a study [6] of an online social network extracted from a weight-loss community, FatSecret, which allows its members to record diaries of food and exercise. Its members are also encouraged to record their weight to track the progress towards weight loss goals.…”

“…For example, it might be desirable to have a dense short-diameter network (e.g. each pair of users are separated no more than 4 degrees [6].) While people mostly find positive feedback from online communities, they may experience negative influences from offline social interactions, particularly with people not motivated for behavior changes, as evidenced by Christakis and Fowler's study [5].…”