With the growing amount of smart phones all over the world, the more creative the apps are becoming. Many people are using apps such as Nike+ Training Club, MapMyFitness, or Fitmo to track and enhance their fitness levels. These apps could be used for a variety of aspects pertaining to your health. Many people use apps for calorie counting, water intake, or even tracking how many miles they have ran. According to a study done by the American Journal of Health Education, 31% of health apps are used for people to count the calories they intake (ex: Calorie Counter), and 38% of apps are used to actually track exercise (ex: MapMyRun). Could it be possible that your own body image and how you see yourself could affect your attitude toward these diet and fitness apps on smart phones? Researchers are saying that this very well is possible.
Found in the article Effects of Body Image on College Students'Attitudes Toward Diet/Fitness Apps on Smartphones, the researchers have determined that four factors related to body image are the key determinants of this attitude. These four factors pertain to your evaluation and orientation towards your appearance and your fitness level. These factors could also affect the way you see these apps as useful. The first factor is your appearance evaluation, which is your present state of your own appearance and how you see yourself. Researchers have found that this alone can negatively affect the way that you see these apps, hence not seeing them as useful. Secondly, the way you evaluate your physical abilities and your fitness state is called your fitness evaluation and this also can negatively affect the way you see these apps as useful. Appearance orientation is the development of desires to keep or improve your appearance and fitness orientation is the development of desires to increase your physical health and fitness level. Both appearance and fitness orientation positively affect the way you view the usefulness of diet and fitness apps. Finally, your personal perceived usefulness of diet and fitness apps positively predicts your future behavior and your intention to use these apps.
If you believe that the app will truly help you reach your fitness and appearance goals then the app could be very useful to you. But if you just have the app, and then delete it or stop using it, there is no chance that it is going to help. What the study finally concluded was that if a person has low confidence and low ability, they are more likely to use the diet and fitness related apps. These people most likely are the ones that are not satisfied with their image and want to change it any way possible. The conclusions from this study would make sense because if one isn’t happy with their image, they’re most likely going to change it. Vice versa, people who are content with their personal image will not be changing it drastically. Though, some people that are happy with their image may use these apps to maintain their current image. For example, if you lost a lot of weight and finally have made it to your ideal weight, you reasonably will do all to not stray away from this zone. From a blog by Melissa Seitz Life From Beyond the Screen, the researcher has found that fitness apps are more useful for the people that are looking to become more fit, and not the people that are already in good shape.
It is said that the people that are already fit are content with the workouts they have been doing, and most likely will not stray away from those habits. I experience a first hand account of this situation. Being a college athlete, I have typical workout habits. I would consider myself to be in shape and fit, therefore I do not tend to use fitness and diet apps. I am very content with the workouts I am given and do on a daily basis, and this would be the reason that for this period of my life I will not be using fitness apps.
This study also came to the conclusion that college students are among those most likely to try fitness apps, because we are more technologically sound. For example, parents are usually asking their younger children for help when it comes to technology because they are not as technically sound as our generation. A study actually done at the University of Maryland found 73% of respondents work out regularly, but only 4% use fitness related apps. This study shows that people can want to change their image and their orientation without the need for iPhone apps.
Research has proven that the first study showing the perceived usefulness of diet and fitness apps will help future research talking about the development of more apps and will further help the app developers. Women are among those most likely to use fitness and diet apps because women are “more sensitive” about their bodies and are more likely to go to extremes to change their image. This is something that app developers should take into account when creating new apps. The developers should direct their apps toward women, because the majority of their future users will be women.
