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By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on September 9, 2014

New research from the UK finds that social networking programs designed to help people lose weight could play a role in the global fight against obesity.

Researchers from Imperial College London combined the results of 12 previous studies to show that such programs have achieved modest but significant results in helping participants lose weight.

The paper is one of 10 reports on global healthcare policy written for the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), an initiative of Qatar Foundation, and published in the journal Health Affairs.

Obesity is an increasing issue in developed and developing countries, contributing to other diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and mental health problems and resulting in rising costs for health services.

During the summit, world experts discussed innovative ways to address major global health issues, including obesity.

One innovation they considered is the use of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to provide obese people with a community of support from both clinicians and peers to help them lose weight.

The researchers compiled data from 12 studies spread across the US, Europe, east Asia, and Australia which compared social networking services for weight loss, involving 1,884 participants in total.

The amalgamated results showed that people who used these services achieved a collective decrease in body mass index by a value of 0.64, which the authors describe as modest but significant.

Health policy researcher and surgeon Dr. Hutan Ashrafian, the lead author of the study at the Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, said, One advantage of using social media over other methods is that it offers the potential to be much more cost-effective and practical for day-to-day use when compared to traditional approaches.

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Enlisting Social Networks in Fight Against Obesity