Push Notifications From a Mobile App to Improve the Body Composition of Overweight or Obese Women: Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

Background: Technology—in particular, access to the Internet from a mobile device—has forever changed the way we relate to others and how we behave in our daily life settings. In recent years, studies have been carried out to analyze the effectiveness of different actions via mobile phone in the field of health: telephone calls, short message service (SMS), telemedicine, and, more recently, the use of push notifications. We have continued to explore ways to increase user interaction with mobile apps, one of the pending subjects in the area of mHealth. By analyzing the data produced by subjects during a clinical trial, we were able to extract behavior patterns and, according to them, design effective protocols in weight loss programs. Objective: A clinical trial was proposed to (1) evaluate the efficacy of push notifications in an intervention aimed at improving the body composition of adult women who are overweight or obese, through a dietary procedure, and (2) analyze the evolution of body composition based on push notifications and prescribed physical activity (PA). Methods: A two-arm randomized controlled trial was carried out. A sample size of 117 adult obese women attended a face-to-face, 30-minute consultation once a week for 6 months. All patients were supplied with an app designed for this study and a pedometer. The control group did not have access to functionalities related to the self-monitoring of weight at home, gamification, or prescription of PA. The intervention group members were assigned objectives to achieve a degree of compliance with diet and PA through exclusive access to specific functionalities of the app and push notifications. The same diet was prescribed for all patients. Three possible PA scenarios were studied for both the control and intervention groups: light physical activity (LPA), moderate physical activity (MPA), and intense physical activity (IPA). For the analysis of three or more means, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) of repeated means was performed to evaluate the effects of the intervention at baseline and at 3 and 6 months. Results: Receiving notifications during the intervention increased body fat loss (mean -12.9% [SD 6.7] in the intervention group vs mean -7.0% [SD 5.7] in the control group; P<.001) and helped to maintain muscle mass (mean -0.8% [SD 4.5] in the intervention group vs mean -3.2% [SD 2.8] in the control group; P<.018). These variations between groups led to a nonsignificant difference in weight loss (mean -7.9 kg [SD 3.9] in the intervention group vs mean -7.1 kg [SD 3.4] in the control group; P>.05). Conclusions: Push notifications have proven effective in the proposed weight loss program, leading women who received them to achieve greater loss of fat mass and a maintenance or increase of muscle mass, specifically among those who followed a program of IPA. Future interventions should include a longer evaluation period; the impact of different message contents, as well as message delivery times and frequency, should also be researched.