Sammendrag
Obesity is a common, costly, and life-threatening chronic disease characterized as abnormal or excessive fat buildup that causes a health risk. Overweight and obesity rates in adults and children continue to rise, whereas the frequency of overweight or obese children aged 5–19 years grew more than fourfold from 4% to 18% globally between 1975 and 2016. And in 2017 nearly 4 million individuals died as a result of being overweight or obese.
The present study investigated the usage of the application Heia Meg, and the effect of taking healthier lifestyle decisions regarding nutrition and physical activity. A prospective longitudinal study was conducted in collaboration with the Norwegian Directorate of Health. Participants were recruited through the application Heia Meg. All users downloading the app between October 4, 2021, and November 5, 2021, received a message containing an informed consent form and a link to the questionnaire. In the first (pre-intervention) questionnaire, 199 responses were included, while in the second one (post-intervention), there were 99 valid responses. Women outnumbered men in terms of participation, in both questionnaires, and age ranged from 18 years to 70 years and older. Men appear to have a higher Body Mass Index than woman, where both genders seem to be overweighted or grade I obese. Furthermore, when looking at the participants health score, men seem to have a higher health score than women.
Results: By analyzing the effect of the digital intervention on the Body Mass Index, a reduction has been observed between post and pre-intervention, while the health score was higher for the pre-intervention group than the post-intervention one. Furthermore, the Body Mass Index was able to account for a significantly amount of variance in the individual’s health score for both groups (26.22% & 18.63%). A regression analysis was performed to assess the effect of independent variables on the health score. Gender, age, education, smoking, and BMI all had a statistically significant effect and accounted for significant amount of variance (44% & 35%).
Conclusion: From this study there is weak or no clear evidence to state that the app Heia Meg does lead to better nutrition and physical activity choices. This result can be attributed to the limitations and confounding factors described in the thesis, and further research – in other contexts – is needed to confirm, or not, this conclusion.