Watching avatar-based videos may help you lose weight

Watching an avatar model weight-loss behaviour in a virtual community might help people shed kilos by practising those skills in real life, a new study has claimed.
US researchers wondered if avatars could be used as a tool to model weight loss behaviour for overweight women.
They surveyed 128 overweight women. Most of them had tried to lose weight during the last year and the majority had never used a virtual reality game.
Despite the fact that most of these women had no experience using virtual reality or even playing online games, the researchers found that 88 per cent said they would be willing to use a programme with an avatar modelling habits that might give them an edge in the battle to lose weight.

Many of the study participants thought that watching an avatar could help them visualise and then put in place healthy behaviour, such as taking a walk every day or picking healthy options when food shopping.
"This pilot study showed that you don't have to be a gamer to use virtual reality to learn some important skills for weight loss," said Melissa Napolitano, an associate professor of prevention and community health at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS).

"This small study suggests that virtual reality could be a promising new tool for building healthier habits," Napolitano said.

The team created videos that showed an avatar in a variety of different situations such as walking on a treadmill or navigating a cart through the aisles of a grocery store.
Using their expertise in virtual reality, Director Antonio Giordano, and Giuseppe Russo of Temple's Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine, developed a virtual reality simulation featuring such an avatar.
The team created a DVD that showed the avatar in four real-world environments.
The women did not have to manipulate the avatar, they just watched the video; however they did pick out the skin colour and shape of the avatar to more closely resemble their own appearance - a feature that might help the study participants visualise and learn a new behaviour, Napolitano said.

The team also enrolled eight overweight women in a four-week pilot test to see if watching the videos could help these women learn new skills that could lead to weight loss.
The women came to the clinic once a week and watched a 15-minute DVD featuring an avatar demonstrating healthy weight loss behaviours.
After four weeks of treatment, the women in the pilot study had lost an average of 1.5 kg, a fairly typical amount for traditional diet plans, Napolitano said.