ประสิทธิผลของการใช้สื่อสังคมออนไลน์เพื่อการลดน้ำหนักในนิสิตระดับปริญญาตรีที่มีภาวะน้ำหนักเกิน / ธัมมะธิดา พัฒนพงศา = Effectiveness of social media for weight reduction in overweight undergraduate students / Tummatida Pattanapongsa
Addressing overweight in the population is an important public health challenge. Using social media such as Facebook has been proposed as a platform to deliver weight-loss interventions to influence behavior change to tackle obesity. The first objective of this study is to conduct systematic review of evidence to understand the effectiveness of social media interventions for weight reduction among overweight and obese people. Databases for systematic review include PubMed, Scopus and Cochrane Library databases. Only the studies using Randomized Control Trials (RCT) published in English or Thai languages between year 2005-2014 were included. The search terms related to Overweight and Social Media were used. We found 436 related articles, of which only two RCT articles passed the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The two articles used Facebook or Twitter and there were both positive and negative results in term of weight loss. The review indicates that there was still limited knowledge related to this topic with unclear effect of social media on weight reduction. The second objective is to compare the effectiveness of weight loss education and support services using Facebook versus offline support systems. The 6-month study period comprised of 4-month intervention period and 2-month follow-up period. The 66 samples were undergraduate students from different faculties which were randomly assigned to the experimental (social media) group or the control (manual book) group. Each group comprised of 33 samples. Both received same basic activities including nutrition and exercise learning, daily weighing self-report, expert advice services and Q&A session. The difference between the experimental and the control group was in the use of Facebook versus offline support systems. Baseline characteristics of the two groups were not different except in their average monthly income. The result found that the experimental group was statistically more active in counseling activities and there is statistically significant difference in the average increase in knowledge score from 1st and 6th month. Both groups had an increase in satisfaction scores at the end of 4th and 6th month. The intervention group has significantly higher reduction in both the Body Mass Index (BMI) and Weight-to-Height Ratio (WHtR) at 4th month compared to the reduction in the control group, with the mean difference of 0.72 (0.13,1.30) and 0.00758 (0.00157,0.01358), respectively. The differences, however, became insignificant at the 6th month period. That means Facebook could be the tool to reduce the BMI and WHtR in the intervention period but the effect might not be sustained. The findings from this study should be considered for further public health planning and scaling up of social media interventions for weight reduction
