The Effects of a Healthy Nutrition Program and Virtual Reality Applications on Body Composition

The most commonly used method in the management of body compositions of healthy individuals in the recent times is the application of physical activity together with a healthy nutrition (diet). The application of diet together with physical activity cause significant changes in the body composition (fat ratio, muscle mass, lean body mass, etc.). Physical activity can be done with traditional physical activity methods as well as with virtual reality applications. Virtual reality is a simulation or a metaversal facet of a real environment created by a computer or various other electronic devices that allows one or more users to interact with certain elements in a simulated virtual frame through a human-machine interface. Virtual reality applications are generally classified as immersive and non-immersive virtual reality . Commercial games such as Sony Playstation, Microsoft Kinect Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii can be given as examples of non-immersive virtual reality . In order to preserve body composition, different exercise applications can be recommended in addition to the diet program. In the literature, many studies involving diet, physical activity or a combination of these two applications have been experimentally planned and carried out in a controlled manner. In these studies, moderate body weight loss (1-5 kg) was reported with only physical activity. It is a general opinion that diet therapy in addition to planned physical activity (exercise) provides more effective and healthier results than people who lose weight with only diet programs or only exercise. It has been stated in previous studies that body composition and physical fitness improve with virtual reality application as happened wih diet intervention. However, due to the fact that access to virtual reality applications is not very easy, longitudinal studies are needed to evaluate whether they should be included in general body composition and physical fitness improvement programs. At this point, the main