JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Temporal aspects of eating are an integral part of healthy eating, and regular eating has been associated with good diet quality and more successful weight control. Unfortunately, irregular eating is becoming more common. Self-monitoring of behaviour has been found to be an efficient behavioural change technique, but the solution should be simple enough to ensure long-lasting adherence.

Objective:

This study aimed to explore the influence of self-monitoring of daily eating pattern with smartphone application on eating rhythm, eating behaviour tendencies, and underlying motives and attitudes related to eating.

Methods:

A smartphone application “Button” was developed for effortless self-monitoring of eating rhythm. The feasibility of the application was tested in a 30 days intervention. The participants (n=74) recorded their eating occasions during the intervention by pressing a button in the application widget.

Results:

The average interval between meals increased (96 ± 24 min during the first 10 days vs. 109.1 ± 36.4 during the last 10 days) and the number of daily eating occasions decreased (4.9 ± 0.9 during the first 10 days vs. 4.4 ± 0.9 during the last 10 days). The tendencies for cognitive restraint, emotional eating and uncontrolled eating increased. Eating-related attitudes and motives remained largely unchanged.

Conclusions:

These results indicate that a simple self-monitoring tool is able to draw user’s attention to eating and is a potential tool to aid people to change their eating rhythm.