Fighting Obesity via Apps and Websites

A new study suggests that using social media applications and websites could help some reach their weight loss goals. 

According to researchers at Duke University, this could help provide calorie listing to food products and menu items via certain applications, making it easier to track and determine what foods each individual can consume.

"If consumers wait until they enter restaurants to make purchasing decisions, it might be too late," said lead author Gary Bennett, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience, global health at Duke who studies obesity prevention, via a press release. "Particularly for those who are watching their waistlines, it's important to make plans before stepping through the restaurant doors. That's why we were interested in understanding whether and how calorie information was available online."

Statistics show that more than one-third of Americans are obese, and restaurant foods play a big contribution in adding to the health problem.

Fortunately, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is still working to figure out certain rules regarding menu labeling and the need to establish better information, according to FDA spokesman Daniel Reese.

"It's wonderful to see regulators doing more to help consumers make informed purchasing decisions," Bennett said, via the release. "However, we will need to adapt these policies to the emerging evidence, which suggests that simply placing calories on restaurant menus will not be sufficient."

The study involved the following data: "One hundred U.S. chain restaurants' websites were used to determine the availability of and ease of access to calorie information. It also considered characteristics of website design and ease of access.

"Researchers found that calorie information is both available and largely accessible on the websites of America's leading restaurants. But the variability in how that information was presented makes it unclear how it might affect consumer behavior."

Their findings show that approximately 82 percent of restaurants provided calorie information via their websites; Twenty-five percent presented calories on a mobile-formatted website; slightly more than half of sites (51.2 percent) linked to calorie information directly via the homepage; quick service/fast casual, larger restaurants and those with less-expensive entrées or lower revenue were more likely to make calorie information available, and that about half the websites of top chains highlighted healthy eating options, although it's up to the restaurant to decide what counts as a "healthy food."

What do you think? 

More information regarding the study can be found in the journal PLOS One.