Social Media Obesity Treatment for College Students

This is a randomized trial designed to translate and deliver programs via social media for a healthy body weight to university students. Specifically, in this trial, we will randomly assign 450 overweight/obese (BMI between 25-45kg/m2) university students (ages 18-35) enrolled at two colleges (George Washington University and University of Massachusetts-Boston) to one of two social media weight loss treatments (personalized or generic) or a contact control. The social media treatments consist of Facebook groups to provide social support, connectedness and intervention content, as well as daily text messages. Assessments will be conducted at baseline, 6, 12, and 18 months post baseline, with the primary outcome being weight loss at 18 months. We hypothesize that: a) Tailored Social Media will lose significantly more weight at the above time points compared with Targeted Social Media. b) Both the Tailored Social Media and Targeted Social Media groups will have greater weight loss at the 6, 12, 18 month follow-ups than Contact Control. The secondary aim is to evaluate changes in metabolic risk factors among those participants who have maintained at least 5% weight loss at 18 months. We hypothesize that participants who achieve a 5% weight loss at 6 and 18 months will have significantly lower triglycerides, higher HDL cholesterol, and lower blood pressure than those who do not achieve and maintain that weight target. Finally, we will conduct additional formative work to evaluate the implementation feasibility of this intervention on college campuses, including an assessment of costs as well as the sustainability infrastructure using the PRISM (Practical, Robust Implementation and Sustainability Model) model as a guide. The results of this study have the potential to significantly impact the delivery of obesity treatment services on college campuses.