Tweeting to Health: A Novel mHealth Intervention Using Fitbits and Twitter to Foster Healthy Lifestyles.
We developed and pilot tested a mHealth intervention, "Tweeting to Health," which used Fitbits, Twitter, and gamification to facilitate support for healthy lifestyle changes in overweight/obese (OW) and healthy weight (HW) young adults. Participants tracked activity and diet using Fitbits and used Twitter for messaging for 2 months. Physical activity, dietary intake, and Tweets were tracked and participants completed surveys at enrollment, 1 month, and 2 months. Descriptive statistics were used to examine steps/day, physical activity intensity, lifestyle changes, and total Tweets. Participants were on average 19 to 20 years old and had familiarity with Twitter. OW participants had on average 11 222 daily steps versus 11 686 (HW). One-day challenges were successful in increasing steps. Participants increased fruit/vegetable intake (92%) and decreased their sugar-sweetened beverage intake (67%). Compliance with daily Fitbit wear (99% of all days OW vs 73% HW) and daily dietary logging (82% OW vs 73% HW) and satisfaction was high.
1 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.|2 Carolina Health Informatics Program, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.|3 UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Outcomes Research Program, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Arlene E
AE
Chung
1 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Asheley C
AC
Skinner
4 UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Stephanie E
SE
Hasty
1 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Eliana M
EM
Perrin
Fitbit; PGHD; Twitter; gamification; healthy lifestyles; mobile health (mHealth); person-generated health data; social media; wearables