Using Twitter has been known to help people gain followers, friends and even employment. But a new study says tweeting can help users lose something equally important — extra pounds.
Published in January in Translational Behavioral Medicine, the six-month study provided remote weight loss support through podcasts, smartphone apps and Twitter, finding that participants who were active on Twitter lost the most weight overall.
Participants in the study were asked to listen to regular weight loss podcasts with nutrition and exercise advice. Some of the participants also used a phone app and Twitter, with researchers encouraging them to log on daily and read and post messages.
The study looked not only at number of tweets posted by participants but also what type they were, finding the majority were informational. Those were characterized as status updates, with messages such as “I avoided eating a pastry this morning at a breakfast meeting.” Researchers found that every 10 tweets sent by participants corresponded with about a 0.5 percent weight loss.
“The idea is not to test Twitter, but to test theories and see what’s going on and what’s effective,” said study co-author Brie Turner-McGrievy, PhD, MS, RD, an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina.
Twitter as a weight loss tool intrigued Turner-McGrievy and colleague Deborah Tate, PhD, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, because of the ability to provide social support. Also, Turner-McGrievy had read anecdotal support of Twitter’s ability to help people drop pounds, such as a journalist who used daily tweets to track his weight loss. The researchers speculated Twitter might offer more anonymity than a social networking site such as Facebook.
“Also, it’s OK on Twitter to post multiple times a day, but that’s not as common on Facebook,” Turner-McGrievy told The Nation’s Health. “I wanted people to be able to be at a restaurant and say, ‘let me tweet to the group and see what they think,’” before placing an order.
The power of social media is of increasing interest to public health researchers, who have found tools such as Twitter and Facebook to be helpful with everything from tracking flu outbreaks to communicating essential information during an emergency. A 2011 study by Johns Hopkins University researchers found Twitter has broad applications for public health research. Those include tracking allergies, obesity and insomnia, particularly if people are managing the illness on their own without seeking medical help.
Future studies could examine what types of social media are most effective with which types of people, Turner-McGrievy said, whether through health promotion, health improvement or other health interventions.
“I think it’s interesting to see what media different groups are drawn to,” she said. “That’s a really unique aspect of this whole type of technology, to allow us to reach out to groups that are difficult to come in for face-to-face meetings or maybe are working two jobs and can’t find time to come to a group meeting. Allowing us to deliver in a remote way is, I think, useful.”
A 2011 Pew Internet and American Life Project survey found 65 percent of adult Internet users have reported using some type of social networking site or tool. When it comes to harnessing social media for public health, more study is needed into what types of people fare best with which tools, she said.
“With technology, we don’t have to have this one-size-fits-all approach,” Turner-McGrievy said.
For more information on the study, visit http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13142-012-0183-y.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
