How Second Life Might Help With Real Life Weight Loss -- It's About the Virtuality, Lead Researcher Suggests

Chances are you've read recent stories that Second Life seems to help maintain real world weight loss, as in this NPR report right here. Basically, a study from the University of Kansas Medical Center found that volunteers who used Second Life to participate in a weight management clinic kept the weight off significantly more than volunteers who participated in a real world, face-to-face version of the same clinic. The average difference was 5%, which may not sound like a lot, but as lead researcher Dr. Debra Sullivan told me, "For a 200 pound person a 14% weight loss would be 28 pounds versus the 9.5% weight loss which would be 19 pounds."

How might this be possible? Since the original press coverage of this study was pretty thin, I asked Dr. Sullivan to tell me more:

WJA: Do you think the weight maintenance in the Second Life program is specifically related to the 3D virtual reality aspect of SL, or would another online medium (such as a Facebook game, or even a pseudonymous bulletin board) also be effective?

DS: "I do not know for sure, but we do believe that the 3D aspect has an added benefit over 2 dimensional computer options. Part of that thinking is due to the fact that in our pilot study, we had better maintenance results than what is typically seen in traditional intent-based programs. We also believe that being able to practice behaviors in virtual reality translates better into doing those behaviors in real life. We plan to explore those questions in our new study."

WJA: Have you thought of trying this study in a virtual reality platform where physical movement is actually part of the experience, such as Avatar Kinect?

DS: "The idea of using an active platform is a great suggestion and one that we may pursue at some time. We used Second Life as that is what I had available. Our University bought an island in Second Life over 5 years ago and faculty have been using it to teach classes. Since I had access to Second Life and our technology group was familiar and supportive of using it, we used it. Our initial study showed great promise for virtual reality, thus we are pursuing the concept."

Good to know more research is being done. I do think Avatar Kinect (or for that matter, Oculus Rift) would be even more effective than Second Life per se for this application -- or perhaps better yet, Second Life connected to Kinect or the Rift.

Please share this post with people you like:

Tweet

Comments

[Vivienne Daguerre]

I am losing weight in real life and would love to participate in any future studies you might do using SL. Please contact me to take me up on that.

[Rob]

See also this Kickstarter project:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1944625487/omni-move-naturally-in-your-favorite-game

[Arcadia Codesmith]

If my gym had a VR rig and some decent content, I would live at my gym.