Digital Weight Management Interventions: A review of commercial solutions and survey analysis of user needs

TL;DR

This paper reviews commercial digital weight management solutions and surveys user needs, revealing current features, gaps, and user preferences to guide future digital health interventions.

Contribution

It systematically analyzes 26 commercial DWMIs and surveys 207 users to identify feature gaps and inform future design improvements.

Findings

DWMIs commonly include self-monitoring, goal setting, and behavior change strategies.

Users prefer smartphone apps and fitness trackers for weight management.

Current DWMIs lack social support, VR, and adaptive personalization features.

Abstract

Obesity is a global health challenge. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), between 1990 and 2022, adult obesity more than doubled. Weight management interventions (WMIs) support individuals in achieving and maintaining a healthy weight through dietary guidance, physical activity promotion and behavioural counselling. However, traditional WMIs often have limited accessibility. Digital WMIs or DWMIs are delivered via websites or smartphone applications and provide scalable and cost-effective alternatives. However, user needs for digital services and their prevalence in the existing commercial solutions remain underexplored. Hence, our study systematically identified 26 commercial DWMIs to identify their features, services, and data collection practices. Additionally, we performed a user needs analysis by recruiting 207 individuals involved in a real-life WMI. Our findings indicated that DWMIs integrated self-monitoring, goal setting, and behaviour change strategies, yet lack social support, virtual reality applications and adaptive personalisation. WMI clients prefer smartphone Apps and fitness trackers for tracking weight management progress and have varying levels of comfort in using digital resources. The presented results serve as recommendations for future directions in the design and implementation of services for DWMIs.