Can digital technologies such as health apps contribute to better healthcare and better results when following a healthy eating and exercise programme? The answer is yes!
In recent decades we have seen an explosion in the development of all kinds of technological innovations that can play an important role in healthcare.
Some of these technologies focus on tackling obesity and help people with obesity keep their weight under control. For weight problems, lifestyle apps do seem to improve patients’ motivation and their perseverance in sticking to their treatment.
Spanish physician Ivan Cavero-Redondo carried out a meta-analysis of 20 studies (conducted between 2007 and 2019) that examined the effect of lifestyle apps on weight loss and adherence (the extent to which the patient sticks to the agreed eating and exercise programme).
This large-scale study shows that using mobile apps, especially those used on a smartphone, leads to more weight loss and better adherence to the lifestyle programme compared with a conventional approach.
The studies also show that using health apps adds value in increasing and sustaining weight loss after bariatric surgery. One of the studies followed a group of bariatric patients for two years who used an app to monitor their daily food intake, physical activity and weight, while also being supported, encouraged and monitored by a community. The group using the mobile health app achieved remarkably better results than the control group in both the first and the second year after bariatric surgery.
Mobile health apps can certainly improve patients’ self-reliance and perseverance and support and encourage their adherence, but they can also reduce the (over)load on people working in healthcare.