V-care: An Application to Support Lifestyle Improvement in Children with Obesity

Obesity is increasing in the pediatric population and it represents an important risk factor for the life-long development of several diseases. The aim of this work is to reduce children obesity through an educational program delivered through a mobile application. Novelties of our approach are the involvement of the families in the program and a design inspired to psychological/behavioral change theories, with the aim of maximizing the chance of patients' compliance to the program. A pilot usability and acceptability study has been performed on ten children aged 6-12 years using a questionnaire to evaluate eight system features on a Likert scale from 1 to 5. Encouraging results were obtained: mean scores were all above 3.

Automated summary

Childhood obesity is a growing concern, as it increases the risk of developing various diseases throughout life. This study aims to reduce childhood obesity through an educational program delivered via a mobile application. Unique aspects of this approach include involving families in the program and designing it based on psychological/behavioral change theories to maximize patient adherence. A pilot study evaluating usability and acceptability on a Likert scale from 1 to 5 yielded encouraging results, with mean scores above 3.