Cyberspace loses weight...

     

     Online health programs have added a virtual dimension to the ongoing support to combat weight loss.  Efforts such as these has aided countless people to reach their goals and find others who have shared the same success.  With all the websites, chat rooms and forums on the internet, it is understandable to reason that more and more people are looking for ways to connect.  The internet gives us the opportunity to build a community or network of like-minded people who have our same ideas, want our same ideas.  The possibility to affect communities and groups on a broad scale seems fitting for the most powerful information system known to man.

In a recent research article out of Penn State University, Dr. Jennifer Kraschnewski found that web based weight loss programs can prove effective in aiding motivated ones to loss weight.  The immediate benefit of online programs was brought out by Dr. Kraschnewski, "Internet-based weight loss programs could help address the obesity epidemic, as they can be widely shared and used with low costs,".  The key term in this research program was "Positive Deviance", for more understanding, "Positive deviance is the idea that solutions to problems exist within a population experiencing that problem".  Dr. Kraschnewski, goes on to suggest that moderate success can be found with this formula and the average weight loss was modest, however this has much larger implications over longer stretches of time.

  

The internet adds losing weight to its resume

This is what came to mind for me, the idea of positive deviance and really understanding this term is important.  By finding successful ways to lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle, this becomes the deviance that can attract populations to online programs.  Thus, giving individuals a place to find useful ways to manage their diet, incorporate exercise regularly and most important find the motivation and the focus to achieve their goals.  Weight loss has to start in the mind, which means we must find a level of understanding of what weight loss really is and how it looks to us personally.  We MUST find sustainable ways to either create positive deviances or find positive deviance around us.  The internet makes the world available to us locally, thus opening up doors, communities, thoughts, best practices and inspiration for access when we need it most.  

How do we define community?  What constitutes a social experience?  Lastly, how does accountability and encouragement affect health?  As our society becomes more technologically savvy social occurrences take on different shapes and more isolated experiences.  For instance, texting, having full conversations with someone without their presence.  FaceTime, Voxer and other social gathering applications create a distance yet close intimate social experience.  We can define a community no longer by the local inhabitants or cluster of people, but now by the ability to communicate or contact one another.  So, what constitutes a social or community experience now, may not host more than one person in one location.  Television may very well constitute a social experience as human interaction and AI technology advances.  This may mean that we are experiencing social connectivity without having to connect.  

Accountability and encouragement are extremely vital for making health changes and sustaining them.  Think about it, we are held accountable at our jobs, by our families and also our friends.  Our extracurricular activities hold us accountable and also give us a measure of encouragement.  When we are sated emotionally by encouragement or positive deviance we are strengthened to continue and progress.  Our accountability is our guide and measure to ensure we are giving our best and meeting requirements to have success.  These two aspects define our lives and how we move through them.  

Online programs create a virtual community, that give us a pseudo social experience that holds us accountable and also gives us encouragement by seeing like people accomplish goals we also have.  This helps us find people near and far that can help us live a better life, find ways to connect, find support and most importantly develop sustainable ways to achieve the healthier life all of us deserve.  

Can we be successful using such mediums as the internet to create the conditions for healthy, sustainable, long-term lifestyle change?  Well, let's not be hasty and press delete on such an idea.  It would be well worth the energy and time to copy and save this idea for future use.  The internet has cast its lot for a large stake in the obesity initiative.  Finally, we may have the Ctrl+Alt+Del for community weight-loss.