SMS for monitoring health

Cell-phone text messages, also known as short message service (SMS), could be used to encourage children to watch their diets and get off the couch.Self-monitoring of calorie intake and body weight is extremely important for losing weight and sustaining it. The most common method of self-monitoring is to keep an old-fashioned paper diary -- something many children and teenagers may resist. So, to devise better ways of self-monitoring and to look whether text messages could offer a children-friendly way to encourage exercise, less TV time and healthier eating, researchers from America equipped 18 children between the ages of 5 and 13 years with a cell phone that they and their parents used to communicate with the researchers. Every day for eight weeks, the families were sent text messages asking how much time the child had spent exercising that day, how much time was spent in front of a TV or computer, and whether the child had had any sugary drinks that day. The researchers immediately sent text messages in response -- either congratulating them on healthy behaviour or encouraging them to make healthier choices next time. Two other groups of children were followed for comparison. In one group, 18 children and their parents were asked to keep paper diaries on the same lifestyle habits; in the other, families went about life as normal.It was found that families in the text-messaging group were more likely to complete the study, and text-messages were found to be more effective than keeping diary to keep a track calorie intake. Moreover, children in the text-message group were the only ones who showed a general decline in TV and computer time. Cell phone text messaging is something that's very familiar to most children now, since they've grown up with it. The above findings indicate that this technology can well be used to make self-monitoring seem more like fun and less like work to children. But, whether the tactic ultimately leads to healthier children needs further research.



Journal of Nutrition Education and BehaviorNovember 2008