• Question: I think that your job is very important because technology comes into everyone's life today! How are you planning to reduce obesity by exploring smartphone technology?

    Asked by Axy to Katie, Andy, Duane, Giovanna, Theresia on 11 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by Harleyhammer7.
    • Photo: Katie Pickering

      Katie Pickering answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      Hi Axy,

      Great question. I am looking at physical activity promoting apps to assess what it is about them that people like and why they download specific ones. For those who are not downloading apps I want to know why and how I can learn to develop exercise apps that they would want to download and use.

    • Photo: Theresia Mina

      Theresia Mina answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      I’ve got a lot of questions about obesity here in the I’m A Scientist mission. I think I am now using technology to raise awareness about obesity don’t you think?

      I also tweet and blog about my research, informing people about my research… there you go smartphone techno is all over the place 🙂

    • Photo: Duane Mellor

      Duane Mellor answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      I engage in lots of Twitter chats, I am doing 2 for World Diabetes Day
      Also I have a student working on a weight stigma project looking at mobile phone apps
      I have a plan to look at the use of augmented reality in this area but it is in its very early stages

    • Photo: Andrew Philp

      Andrew Philp answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      Social media is great as it allows people to quickly talk to each other, share ideas and communicate. Smartphones, apps are extensions of this media and could be a good way to communicate information to people about how to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

      HOWEVER, to me these devices are fine, but they are still not going to directly reduce obesity, as this is all down to the end user and whether they make the decision to undertake regular activity and eat a heathy balanced diet. For a lot of reasons, many of which we still don’t fully understand, huge portions of the UK choose to be inactive and choose to eat unhealthy foods despite knowing that both these choices are bad for your health.

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