Food for Thought: The Impact of m-Health Enabled Interventions on Eating Behavior

Mobile apps have great potential to deliver promising health-related interventions to engage consumers and change their eating behaviors. However, most interventions promoting healthy eating are either too onerous to keep consumers engaged or too restrictive to be broadly useful. Many are excited by the prospect of using social media to provide individuals information from many sources, but it is unclear how peer engagement interacts with other kinds and sources of information. This study evaluates a mobile-enabled intervention, comparing a control group to four forms of a mobile-based visual diary: with or without image-based dietitian support, and with or without peer engagement. We measured user engagement and food choices over four months in a randomized field experiment. We find a strong positive impact of the mobile-based visual diary and dietitian support on improving customer engagement. Specifically, the mobile-based visual diary and dietitian support each increases the log-odds ratio of user engagement by 43.8% and 50.7%, respectively. Mediation analysis further reveals that while the use of a mobile app increases user engagement through improved self-e cacy, the influence mechanism of dietitian support is through improved intention and enhanced transition from intention to behavior. We also identify some negative e↵ects of peer engagements, as the log-odds ratio of customer engagement is decreased by 33.8%. We also find that the mobile-based visual diary promoted fruit and vegetable consumption and appropriate portion sizes, increasing their scores by 0.30 and 0.37, respectively; in addition, users’ overall scores for healthy eating can also be improved by providing dietitian support, albeit with smaller e↵ect sizes. These results provide quantitative evidence that highlight the promise of mobile apps for delivering advanced interventions to engage users and facilitate health behavior change.