We propose an undergraduate research experience for three CMU-Q students joining ongoing mobile technology development and human factors research for a weight loss intervention. Latest obesity statistics for Qatar indicate the importance of preventive interventions. Based on documented successful methods of delivery, we combine tailored text messaging services, goal setting support, progress monitoring, and a social network setup for supporting participants’ efforts to implement a healthier lifestyle. An Android phone application will facilitate the goal achievement during a 5 weeks nutritionist intervention trial with local students. The mobile technology we propose will use a developed Android phone application linked to a server that monitors usage of the technology and progress for goal achievement of users. The first module of the application will provide tailored text messages from the nutritionist for the user several times a day with an option to reply to those messages. These messages aim to prompt health behavior that the user has set as personal goals and to provide context information related to these aims. The second module implements a motivational visualization of achievements for several goals and allows more direct communication with the nutritionist. The third module supports the implementation of virtual teams motivating users to achieve goals together. This module can foster and complement social networking and social support in the teams. Here users can see their own achievements as well as the chaired group scores. Once fully developed, the mobile technology with its three modules will be tested on usability before the intervention study to fix potential issues. For this study, about five members of the college community will be asked to solve a couple of tasks using the technology and to produce verbal protocols while using the different components. Potential issues identified during this study will be fixed before releasing the prototype to participants of the intervention study. In addition, we will conduct a web-based survey with Education City students for better understanding their health behavior in general. For this survey, we will use several established tools including, for example, eating pattern questionnaire, a body-self-esteem test and a body-schema test. Results from this survey will inform us about the current state of Education City students’ health behavior and will give us an estimate on what kinds of goals we might encounter during the intervention study. At the same time, the data will allow us to compare our intervention data with. Finally, we will conduct the 5 weeks intervention study with two groups of undergraduate students, one control group with the nutritionist invention but without support by mobile technology, and one experimental group with three different modules implemented each for one week of the intervention. After the three weeks, we will release participants from the study and ask them back for a follow-up after two more weeks. Before and after each week (module experimented) we will measure participants’ physiological measures and cognitive, emotional and behavioral aspects of health behavior. In addition, we will ask participants in the experimental group to evaluate the mobile technology module they have used during the previous week of the intervention. Results from the intervention study will inform us about the potentials for using mobile technology as support for nutritionist interventions in Qatar with young adults. In addition, we will learn how effective mobile technology implemented as three modules in our study might be for Qatari patients, keeping in mind the limitation of our research study on a non-clinical sample.
