Social support in an Internet weight loss community
Open accessAbstract
Purpose To describe social support for weight loss shared by members of a large Internet weight loss community.Methods We conducted a mixed-methods study with surveys (n=193) and interviews (n=13) of community members along with a content analysis of discussion forum messages (n=1924 messages). Qualitative data were analyzed for social support themes.Results Survey respondents were primarily white (91.4%) and female (93.8%) with mean age 37.3 years and mean body mass index 30.9. They used forums frequently, with 56.8% reading messages, 36.1% replying to messages, and 18.5% posting messages to start a discussion related to weight loss on a daily or more frequent basis. Major social support themes were encouragement and motivation, mentioned at least once by 87.6% of survey respondents, followed by information (58.5%) and shared experiences (42.5%). Subthemes included testimonies, recognition for success, accountability, friendly competition, and humor. Members valued convenience, anonymity, and the non-judgmental interactions as unique characteristics of Internet-mediated support.Conclusion This Internet weight loss community plays a prominent role in participants' weight loss efforts. Social support within Internet weight loss communities merits further evaluation as a weight loss resource for clinicians to recommend to patients. Understanding these communities could improve how health professionals evaluate, build, harness, and manipulate social support for weight loss.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Social networking sites, unlike traditional websites, permit face-to-face communication online.
“Unlike traditional websites, social media networking sites allow online face-to-face communication.20”
From Social media and Internet usage of orthopaedic surgeons (2017) · cites this paper as [20]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 39 · Cited by 338
- Authors
- Hwang, K. O., Ottenbacher, A. J., Green, A. P., Cannon-Diehl, M. R., Richardson, O., Bernstam, E. V., & Thomas, E. J.
- Affiliations
- The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (US)
- Memorial Hermann (US)
- Baylor College of Medicine (US)
- Corresponding author
- Hwang, Kevin O.
- Venue
- International Journal of Medical Informatics
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2010-01
- Volume
- 79
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 5-13
- ISSN
- 1386-5056 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3060773
- OpenAlex
- W2077780333
- Cited by
- 338
- References
- 39
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 23 · 2019: 25 · 2018: 30 · 2017: 33 · 2016: 34 · 2015: 36 · 2014: 26 · 2013: 25 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 15.69
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- International Journal of Medical Informatics (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Digital Commons-TMC (Texas Medical Center) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
- Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
- National Center for Research Resources (UL1RR024148)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Literacy and Information Accessibility
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Pharmacy › Obesity and Health Practices
- Keywords
- social support, weight loss, online communities, forum, collective experience, anonymity, accountability, online health communities
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Attitude to Computers, Attitude to Health, Female, Health Education, Health Surveys, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Motivation, Persuasive Communication, Social Support, Weight Loss, Internet, Overweight
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
