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How social media helps you lose weight

How social media helps you lose weight

Written by Shraddha Rupavate |Published : September 10, 2014 10:27 AM IST

OverweightAre you looking for an innovative approach to lose weight? Be a part of social media communities. A study published in the journal Health Affairs revealed the role of social networking programmes in helping people achieve their weight loss goals and fight the global issue of obesity.

The study, carried out by Imperial College London, combined 12 previous studies from Europe, east Asia and Australia, involving about 1884 participants who tried social networking services on Twitter and Facebook to lose weight. These sites offer communities where clinicians and peers could support people and discuss hurdles in achieving their weight loss goals.

The combined results from all the studies showed that those who tried these services had collectively lost value of body mass index 0.64, which according to the authors is a significant decrease.

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According to health policy researcher and surgeon Dr Hutan Ashrafian, the lead author of the study at the Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, social media has a lot of potential and is a cost-effective and practical method that helps weight loss compared to other traditional approaches.

With inputs from PTI

Photo source: Getty images

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