For those looking to shed the pounds, the easy answer was right in front of them.
American researchers have found that the social networking site Twitter can speed up the rate at which we shed the pounds.
They said the website can be a “valuable support system for helping people to lose weight, with dieters encouraging each other along the way with motivational posts.”
The researchers, from the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health, found the more status updates people read relating to healthy eating and exercise, the more weight they were likely to lose.
On average, for every 10 Twitter updates read, they lost on average 0.5 per cent of their body weight.
Lead researcher Brie Turner-McGrievy said it was the first study to examine the use of Twitter as part of a “behavioural weight loss intervention”.
“The results show that those who regularly used Twitter as part of a mobile weight loss program lost more weight,” she said.
Who knew? Twitter could be the ultimate weight loss tool…
The researchers followed 96 overweight and obese men and women split into two groups over a six-month period for the study. They all had a phone with an internet facility.
Both groups received podcasts with information about nutrition, exercise and goal setting.
As well as the podcasts, one group also had a Twitter app on their phone.
Those who used the Twitter app the most lost the most weight.
They logged in daily to read messages of encouragement and they posted their own messages of healthy eating examples to other members of the group to discuss.
Dr Turner-McGrievy said Twitter helped people shed the pounds because it helped people check the calorie contents of menus with their fellow dieters, and so on.
She told the Daily Mail: “Traditional behavioural weight loss interventions generally provide social support through weekly, face-to-face group meetings. While we know this is effective, it is costly and can create a high degree of burden on participants.
“We wanted to find a way to provide the group support we normally deliver during a face-to-face weight loss intervention to the online community.
“Providing group support through online social networks can be a low cost way to reach a large number of people who are interested in achieving a healthy weight.”
The study was published in the journal Translational Behavioural Medicine.
