Free-living Energy Balance Assessment and Management in Close to Real Time

So many Americans are overweight that the condition has been declared a serious public health problem and is burdening our health care systems. Obesity increases the risk of diabetes, heart attack, stroke, cancer, arthritis, sleep apnea and other diseases. Researchers are making progress to find and control the behavioral and biochemical factors that drive weight gain and their progress points to successful weight management strategies. To continue they will need better data on free living energy balance and the ability to create and deliver individualized prescriptions. This project will create a mobile phone system that assesses energy balance and test its usability with adolescents and young adults. Our purpose is to demonstrate the effectiveness of mobile phones to quantify a wide range of important factors in overweight and weight management. The phone is used to collect energy balance information (intake, activity and weight change) from a user throughout the day for an indefinite period. The user enters meals and snacks, activity descriptions, and other context input in response to questions or as free text. In the background the phone automatically collects tri-axial accelerometer readings and information about the user's movement via GPS. All the information is collected first in the mobile phone then transmitted to a central system in near to real time where it is stored and maintained for analysis.