Mobile apps for pediatric obesity prevention and treatment, healthy eating, and physical activity promotion: just fun and games?
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Date
2013-09-27
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Abstract
Mobile applications apps offer a novel way to engage children in behavior change but little is known about content of commercially available apps for this population We analyzed the content of apps for iPhone iPad for pediatric weight loss healthy eating HE and physical activity PA Fifty seven apps were downloaded and tested by two independent raters Apps were coded for inclusion of the Expert Committee for Pediatric Obesity Prevention s ECPOP eight recommended strategies e g set goals and seven behavioral targets e g do 1 h of PA per day utilization of gaming elements and general characteristics Most apps lacked any expert recommendations n 35 61 4 The mean number of recommendations among apps that used recommendations was 3 6 2 7 out of 15 56 1 n 32 apps were classified as games and mean price per app was 1 05 1 66 Most apps reviewed lacked expert recommendations and could be strengthened by addition of comprehensive information about health behavior change and opportunities for goal setting
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Keywords
Child, Young people (10-24 years), Client, Communication roadblocks, Addressing individual beliefs and practices, Prototype, Functionality, Individual based, Obesity, Health education or promotion, Installed application