Can you lose weight with the 'apps' mobile?

NUTRICIÓN | Nuevas tecnologías

Can you lose weight with the 'apps' mobile?

- Revisan la validez médica de cientos de aplicaciones para iPhone
- Muchas de ellas hacen recomendaciones dietéticas inapropiadas


New technologies can promote a sedentary lifestyle and contribute to increasing rates of obesity, but can also be used to benefit the patient to help you keep healthy habits and proper diet. The latter is what they promise hundreds of applications for smartphones, but the problem is to distinguish, among all them which follow scientific criteria and which are a fraud and may even damage the user's health.


This has been the target of a work in George Washington University (USA), which has analyzed more than 200 'apps' for iPhone destined to lose weight. Many of them follow medical recommendations that may be useful, but most do not do a thorough and very few take into account all the medical criteria to be applied to a diet.


As in the publishing business, some of whose most celebrated dietary suggestions are not healthy, there are many applications whose weight loss plans can harm the user. The study's authors, led by Emily Breton and published in 'Behavioural Translational Medicine' (TBM) have identified 'apps' that offer all-day drinking lemonade or eating only apples (not recommended). Or even one that is not known if jokingly, proposes to use the mobile vibrator function to burn fat cells in the womb.


The researchers analyzed the quality of the 'apps' according to 13 different dietary recommendations made by public health agencies in the U.S.. Although most of the applications studied responded to any of these scientific criteria, only 15% of them met five or more healthy recommendations.


Caloric balance


6% of the 'apps' also did not meet even one of the desirable criteria for dieting, some as seemingly simple as encouraging eating fruit and vegetables, taking into account the user's weight or maintain a balance between calories you eat and you burn in daily activity. The best rated program (called SparkPeople) brought together 12 of the 13 criteria used.


The 'apps' for 'smartphones' may be promising to help people improve their health. However, academic research of these applications, for this and other health-related purposes has not kept pace with innovations technology, and its effectiveness remains to be determined, "the authors note in their study.


The research also revealed that assessments made by users of the 'apps' not related to the scientific qualities of the same. Therefore, the authors conclude that users' apps' should 'seek additional sources of self-help, preferably those who have received professional input and evaluation. "


Source: elmundo.es