Acceptability and Feasibility of a Smartphone Application for 5th, 6th Grade Elementary Students to Prevent Childhood Obesity; a Qualitative Study

Ji-Hye Jung; Young-Gyu Cho; Da-Ye Ji; Jae-Heon Kang

doi:10.15384/kjhp.2016.16.4.251

Korean J Health Promot > Volume 16(4); 2016 > Article

Jung, Cho, Ji, and Kang: Acceptability and Feasibility of a Smartphone Application for 5th, 6th Grade Elementary Students to Prevent Childhood Obesity; a Qualitative Study

Original Article

Korean Journal of Health Promotion 2016;16(4):251-259.

Published online: January 20, 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15384/kjhp.2016.16.4.251

Acceptability and Feasibility of a Smartphone Application for 5th, 6th Grade Elementary Students to Prevent Childhood Obesity; a Qualitative Study

Ji-Hye Jung¹, Young-Gyu Cho^1,², Da-Ye Ji¹, Jae-Heon Kang^1,^2,

¹Institute for Clinical Nutrition, Inje University, Seoul, Korea

²Department of Family Medicine, Seoul Paik Hospital, College of Medicine, Inje University, Seoul, Korea

Corresponding author: Jae-Heon Kang, MD, PhD Institute for Clinical Nutrition, Inje University, 18 Mareunnae-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul 04552, Korea
Tel: +82-2-2272-0908, Fax: +82-2-2268-0971 E-mail: fmleader@nuri.net

Received July 15, 2016 Accepted December 28, 2016

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

ABSTRACT

Background

This study aimed to describe the acceptability and feasibility of the “HAPPY ME”, a smartphone application (app) for guiding healthy eating habits and physical activities to prevent childhood obesity, through in-depth interviews of 5th and 6th grade students of an elementary school.

Methods

A total of 25 students were recruited from grades 5 and 6 of an elementary school in Gimpo. They were asked to participate in in-depth interviews about expectations regarding the “HAPPY ME”, smartphone usage behaviors, perceptions and attitudes towards health, and satisfaction with the “HAPPY ME”, before and after the 4-week trial of the “HAPPY ME”.

Results

Study participants reported a high level of satisfaction regarding gamification elements such as awarding points as rewards for completing missions and using closed social networking services with friends. They also reported that their eating habits had improved after the 4-week trial. However, some students felt that the app was complicated to use and recommended that it should have prompts as notifications.

Conclusions

This study showed that the “HAPPY ME” is acceptable and feasible for use with children. However, the app needs to be modified based on the results of this study.

Keywords: Obesity, Mobile applications, Child, Child nutrition sciences, Exercise

Figure 1.

Screenshots of the “HAPPY ME” application.

Table 1.

Contents of pre-intervention interview questions

Theme	Sub-theme
Expectations	Expectations from participating in the study
regarding the “HAPPY ME”	Interesting features of the “HAPPY ME”
regarding the “HAPPY ME”	Features that the “HAPPY ME” should include
	Form (quiz, video, game, etc.)
Smartphone	Benefits of a smartphone
usage behaviors	Commonly used applications Total time spent on smartphone use per day
Perceptions	Perceptions regarding health
and attitudes towards health	Self-evaluation of your health Definition of healthy eating habits Usual eating habits
	Perceptions towards exercise
	Relationship between exercise and health Usual exercise pattern (duration, frequency, intensity, etc.)

Table 2.

Contents of post-intervention interview questions

Theme	Sub-theme
Expectation regarding the	Features that the “HAPPY ME” should include
“HAPPY ME”	Form (quiz, video, game, etc.)
Satisfaction with	Your favorite features of the “HAPPY ME”
the “HAPPY ME”	Functions that the “HAPPY ME” should
the “HAPPY ME”	have for sustained use
	Evaluation of the gamification elements
	Function used most frequently
	Inconvenient elements
Perceptions and	Perceptions regarding health
attitudes towards health	Self-evaluation of health Definition of healthy eating habits
	Effect of the “HAPPY ME” on eating habits
	Reasons for changes in eating habits
	Perceptions towards exercise
	Relationship between exercise and health
	Effect of the “HAPPY ME” on the exercise pattern
	Reasons for changes in the exercise pattern

Table 3.

General characteristics of the study participants

Question	Number (%)
Gender
Boys	14 (56)
Girls	11 (44)
Age (years)
10	2 (8)
11	12 (48)
12	11 (44)
Year in elementary school
Fifth year	9 (36)
Sixth year	16 (64)
Type of mobile OS
Android	25 (100)
iOS	0 (0)
Time of smartphone use (hours/day)
<1	4 (16)
1–2	12 (48)
≥2	9 (36)

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