New frontiers in the fight against obesity: digital health education as supporting in the interdisciplinary clinical process

Abstract

Obesity is characterized as a complex, multifactorial and chronic disease, with biological and social consequences that trigger several comorbidities that decrease quality and life expectancy. Increasing numbers of with obesity suggest the development of lifestyle interventions designed to regulate the energy balance that often clash with motivational problems, environmental and personal barriers, hampering the success, implementation, and adherence to programs. In this perspective, electronic media and easy access to the internet can be allied with structured weight loss programs scientifically based on the addition of numerous educational, control and communication tools. Objective: The main objective of this study is to verify the influence of the multidisciplinary intervention with lifestyle guidelines in obese adult women with educational health program based online platform. Methodology: 300 obese adult women, aged 20 to 45 years, classified as obese according to Body Mass Index (BMI) will be selected. The volunteers will undergo 12 weeks of multidisciplinary therapy with clinical assessment, dietary guidance and physical activity, with online support through emails, WhatsApp®, social media and videos with educational themes on obesity in an online platform. After the selection (baseline) and the intervention period, the patients will perform the analysis of body composition, physical activity level analysis, biochemical analyzes (glucose, insulin, lipid profile - total cholesterol, fractions and triglycerides, energy balance markers - Adiponectin, leptin, NPY, and the cellular transdifferentiation markers - FGF-21 and atrial natriuretic peptide) and blood pressure (BP). The insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) and insulin sensitivity (QUICKI) will be calculated. The protocol will be composed of tree face-to-face sessions with group support that will address the difficulties encountered in lifestyle, including eating habits, exercise and motivation throughout the protocol by electronic means. In these meetings the questionnaires will be applied to investigate the symptoms of depression, anxiety, bulimia, body self-image, mood alteration, physical activity level, food frequency, metabolic tracing, eating habits, food registry of three days, quality of life and anthropometric measures of weight, height, circumferences, BP and body composition. In the non-presential weeks, the weight will be monitored by self-report and at the end of each week, the volunteers will answer a quiz of questions about the topics worked. Post-intervention weight regimens will be analyzed electronically for 12 and 24 weeks following studies. The results will be analyzed using Statistica software version 7.0. The normality of the data will be verified and the behavior of the variables during the intervention performed by the ANOVA test for repeated measures with adopting p d 0.05. The dependency behavior of the variables will be verified by simple linear regression. (AU)