Given The Asynchronous Nature Of Twitter
Indeed, 100 % of women with multiple children inside our sample were at least somewhat thinking about a Twitter-delivered weight loss program (in comparison to 70 percent70 % of women with one young child and 79 % of women without children). One possible approach to handling this critical research need is by reaching and intervening on obesity among women of childbearing age group via Twitter.
Our results suggest that women of childbearing age group are thinking about a weight loss program delivered entirely via Twitter. While the most women reported at least moderate interest in every planned program components proposed, women expressed better interest in a few components than others. The two proposed program components with the lowest proportion of women confirming that these were at least somewhat interested were watching videos of healthy cooking food demonstration and planned chats with a trainer and other women attempting to lose weight.
Given the asynchronous nature of Twitter, planned chats might be of less interest than unscheduled engagement that includes nearly all Twitter interactions. We found that a greater proportion of women were thinking about reading about other women’s progress via their tweets (83 %) than were interested in tweeting about their own progress (71 %). Research is needed to devise innovative strategies for engaging individuals.
Future studies could include requesting women to judge how engaging they would find specific posts or articles, and also examining which types of content netted the most engagement. This study increases what is known about women’s perceptions of the strengths and challenges of online language resources for weight loss. This in addition to the ability to make an anonymous accounts compose features that correspond to women’s perceived advantages of privacy and support/accountability. Especially for women whose in-person internet sites may not be supportive of weight reduction, Offers the chance to create a supportive network Twitter.
Some women indicated concerns about a lack of privacy, low support/accountability, low engagement, insufficient effectiveness, and technology. Engagement and creating group cohesion in online behavioral interventions can be an ongoing area of inquiry. Lots of the technology-related and personal privacy concerns were either hesitance to make a second Twitter accounts, or concerns that may reflect a poor understanding of the type and procedure for interacting within an exclusive Twitter network. Some personal privacy concerns, such as ownership of the info and use of anonymous accounts with pseudonyms and avatars must be obviously communicated to participants during the recruitment and consent process to ease nearly all these concerns.
- 5 years back from Toronto, Ontario-Canada
- Read my bio on Sports Chalet and inform me one thing you learned about me via a comment
- Plan a strategy
- I cannot see any option to track my diet habit
- Bread Has Plenty of Gluten
- Vomiting if food is not properly chewed or if food is consumed too quickly
Subsequent development of a Twitter-delivered weight loss program should capitalize on recognized program advantages and proactively address women’s concerns concerning this mode of treatment delivery. This research also provides insight in to the potential of Twitter for recruitment of women interested in losing weight. We were able to recruit women via Twitter with less effort and staff time than more traditional, in-person recruitment methods. Twitter may be an effective strategy for recruiting women of childbearing age into research strategies. Three of the authors tweeted recruitment messages from our Twitter accounts, which focus on research and health promotion, with an focus on weight management and fitness.
Thus, we believe that our sample may be more thinking about topics related to weight reduction and health research than the bigger population of US women of childbearing age group. As the 72 unique Twitter accounts that retweeted our recruitment messages disseminated this message further than our own supporters, we did not reach more than a level or two into the bigger Twitter network. This study has additional advantages and restrictions. Our sample size was modest, limiting power for statistical comparisons.
Our sample was mainly non-Hispanic white (79 %) and highly informed (48 % acquired a graduate level), and, thus, our results may not be generalizable to women of other races/ethnicities or less educated women. Only a 3rd of our sample had children in her household; future work could explore interest and recognized strengths and concerns among mothers specifically.
We did not directly ask women whether they wanted to lose weight; however, 83 % of individuals reported that they were currently trying to lose weight, indicating that at least this majority desired weight loss. However, individuals received no compensation for participation, reducing the probability of duplicate reactions thus. We calculated the recruitment yield as the amount of respondents and the number of completed surveys divided the potential reach. We approximated 2.3 completed studies per recruitment tweet, and 1.8 completed research per 10,000 Twitter accounts reached possibly. Given the tiny effort required to send recruitment tweets, this method of recruitment is time- and cost-efficient. However, there are a few things to consider when interpreting these total results.