{"title":"The role of social support in obesity online health communities. A literature review","authors":"Lara Martin-Vicario, L. Gómez-Puertas","doi":"10.12840/issn.2255-4165.037","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In the treatment of obesity, social support is considered key to successful weight loss and behavioural change, and online health communities to complement obesity treatment programmes have been shown to increase obesity treatment effectiveness. This study reviews the latest literature regarding how social support provided through an online health community can help people tackle obesity, identifying the different effects of social support on online health community members, specifically, the promotion of behavioural change and increased self-efficacy. This study also reveals how the recent literature points to both a direct and indirect relationship between social support in online health communities for obesity treatment and actual weight loss. This review is likely to provide useful insights to both healthcare professionals and social platform developers.","PeriodicalId":43364,"journal":{"name":"Review of Communication Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":6.3000,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Review of Communication Research","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.12840/issn.2255-4165.037","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
In the treatment of obesity, social support is considered key to successful weight loss and behavioural change, and online health communities to complement obesity treatment programmes have been shown to increase obesity treatment effectiveness. This study reviews the latest literature regarding how social support provided through an online health community can help people tackle obesity, identifying the different effects of social support on online health community members, specifically, the promotion of behavioural change and increased self-efficacy. This study also reveals how the recent literature points to both a direct and indirect relationship between social support in online health communities for obesity treatment and actual weight loss. This review is likely to provide useful insights to both healthcare professionals and social platform developers.
期刊介绍:
Review of Communication Research will publish an annual volume with comprehensive and authoritative reviews of the current state of the main topics and the most significant developments in the field of Communication. These comprehensive critical reviews will summarize the latest advances in the field, but also will root out errors and will provoke intellectual discussions among scholars. The journal seeks both evaluative (theorical) and quantitative (meta-analysis) papers that make a state of the art of issues in scientific communication. Integrative review articles that connect different areas of research are of special interest.