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Worldwide nearly 400 million children and adolescents were overweight in 2022, and adolescent obesity has quadrupled since 1990. Given the well-known impact of adolescent obesity on health and wellbeing – both immediate and into adulthood – improving dietary habits in this age group is a matter of urgency and a major public health priority. Early adolescence is an ideal time to promote healthy eating, given that dietary and other health-related habits established during this time tend to persist into adulthood. In this issue, Anne Ahrendt Bjerregaard and colleagues examine whether a chatbot-based health education program (versus no program) could improve dietary behaviors and body weight trajectories among nearly 8000 adolescents in Denmark. The 12-week SMS-based intervention focused on key dietary behaviors, aiming to decrease the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, and increase the intake of fruits, vegetables and fish. The authors found no discernible effect on body mass index or dietary habits at 6 months or 18 months after the intervention, leading them to call for more refined and personalized messaging systems to improve the potential utility of such programs.
Image Credit: WHO / Violaine Martin Variety of vegetables at the open market