Is it possible for the app to achieve the results of a personal trainer? | Health and wellness

Since the first technological developments such as cooking and the wheel, innovation has promoted energy storage and effort reduction. This, which has been a blessing for thousands of years, is beginning to become a serious problem. Obesity and a host of related diseases threaten to wipe out millions of individuals and overwhelm healthcare systems. In the absence of changes that make it easier to purchase healthy food and make it harder to access junk food, or to plan cities that encourage physical activity, technological solutions are being sought to solve the problems that technology itself has created: the latest being liquefied petroleum gas. agonists 1, fashionable diet pills.

Exercise, which requires more effort than swallowing a pill but offers a much wider range of benefits, will be one of the best personal tools in the fight against this global pandemic. However, even if its benefits are known, it is not easy to overcome the human tendency to save energy. Personal trainers help create good habits, but they are expensive and this has led to the emergence of alternatives such as mobile apps that help you find motivation. Magazine PIT, published by the American Medical Association, recently published a study comparing the effect of one such application with the effect of combining the technology with a human assistant. At this point, machines are not superior to humans.

The aim of the study was to analyze the extent to which obese people could be helped to lose weight without human assistance, in order to introduce cheaper and more effective treatments. 400 people took part in it, who were divided into two groups: one received only technological assistance (one application built-in Wi-Fi scale and activity bracelet) that volunteers used to obtain information about their diet, activity and weight; and another who, in addition to technology, had a human trainer. Depending on the results, treatment was adapted, messages of support were added via application as a first step and inclusion of a human trainer or meal replacement when increased treatment is needed. After a six-month follow-up of 342 participants, those who received technology assistance only lost an average of 2.8 kilograms, while those who also had a trainer lost 4.8 kilograms.

“The average person still needs a human coach to achieve clinically meaningful weight loss goals because the technology is not mature enough,” said Bonnie Spring, first author of the study and professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, USA. “We may be close to having a virtual assistant that can replace a human, but we’re not there yet. It’s within our reach. “Technology is moving very quickly,” he adds.

Although the weight loss is small, an editorial in the magazine PIT highlights the importance of this type of intervention, the intensity of which is increasing, and the tools used are a way to achieve benefits at lower costs and fewer risks than current pharmacological or surgical treatments for obesity.

Miquel Izquierdo, director of the Department of Health Sciences at the Public University of Navarra, said machines are now necessary for medical professionals to obtain information about sleep hours, monitor diet results or adjust daily exercise loads, but he does not believe they can replace humans. At least for now: “For a long time, medicine has been impersonal, and the results of technologies that now provide better information than ultrasound scans and are superior to humans in many aspects tell us that we must personalize it again to study the eyes patients, touch them,” says this specialist.

However, Izquierdo would not recommend starting a training plan relying on just one application: “Applications for an exercise program have compliance issues because the person needs to be motivated to continue exercising. What motivates me is not enough to motivate my mother. The trainer should encourage us to continue training every day,” he explains. He also believes that for the success of the workout it is important to have someone next to you, accompanying and advising, “and also adjusting the load because you are tired, or because your heart rate has increased significantly, or the speed of execution has decreased.” ” For people who can’t have a professional with them, he recommends finding a group or person to exercise to improve motivation.

Keys to Motivation

Borja del Pozo, a health researcher at the University of Cadiz, also doubts that technology or artificial intelligence applications will produce the same results that humans achieve, but believes that “there may be a subgroup of the population that “do not need as much to achieve results.” People”. Identifying these people would mean significant savings from a public health perspective. His team is already working on interventions in hospitals to help older people get out of bed using the app.

“We use an accelerometer on the leg, place the tablet next to the patient and set a movement goal,” Del Pozo explains. “With a chatbot, you can make the machine learn, provide information or support to the patient, and do it in a contextual way. If there is a heavier person who will react worse, you can increase the mood; or if the machine detects a voice in the room and sees that you have company, it may invite you to take a walk with that person,” this researcher gives an example.

Although technology is improving and approaching the results it can achieve in weight loss or muscle gain that a professional person can achieve, Del Pozo reminds that very broad social measures are fundamental in the fight against obesity. “The social gradient is what has the biggest impact: whether the environment you live in is conducive to obesity, whether it tends to be more active or whether it is cleaner are fundamental factors. Even before birth, if your parents live under high stress due to their social and economic circumstances, the chances of causing obesity increase,” the scientist notes. Reversing obesity will require action to reduce poverty and inequality, two indicators closely linked to health.

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