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In overweight and obese young adults, how does the use of Telehealth consultation compared to in-person consultation affect weight loss?

Population
Obesity is a common disorder and chronic health condition whereby a person accumulates excessive or abnormal fat within the body. Obesity raises major health risks because if not attended to can develop into diseases such as diabetes, depression, heart failure and even cancer. One population in which obesity affects is that of young adults. The rate in which it affects young adults has increased at a dramatic rate over the years and plays a vital role in the livelihood of them. Being that young adults are more susceptible to eating unhealthily, the rate in which obesity has grown has become inevitable. With physical complications also comes the complications of low self-esteem in these young adults but provisions have been made to prevent further increase pertaining to the increasing rate of this disorder.

Intervention
Abundant food choices give us more access to nutrients. However, over nutrition leads to chronic diseases like being overweight and obese. More and more young adults are diagnosed with obesity and its number is still growing. Interactive Telehealth consultation has emerged and introduced by healthcare physicians as an effective way that helps patients with obesity get weight loss and advice on food selection. A pilot study performed in an academic medical center shows that Telehealth intervention propels participants to have a -0.29 kg median weight loss weekly and -3.9 kg mean change in total weight by using trained health coaching, automated text messaging , and wearable devices. Telehealth intervention promotes the loss of weight and weight maintenance.

Comparison
Telehealth consultations as a medical intervention are more accepted and widely used in most clinics. Based on the population study of overweight and obese patients on young adults, we compared Telehealth interventions with traditional in-person consultations to find a better outcome for weight loss. At a twelve weeks open-label trial funded by Internal Cleveland Clinic Grant in treating obesity under the medication Phentermine with patients whose BMI ≥ 27 kg/m2, there was a -4.3% change in mean weight among virtual visits and -5.1% among in-person visits at the first four weeks. Then changes in mean weight showed Telehealth visits with reading of -6.6% while in-person visits with reading of -7.7% at twelve weeks. The mean weight difference was from 0.9 (four weeks) to 1.0 (twelve weeks) when comparing Telehealth to in-person consultations. The comparison figures showed that interactive Telehealth visits are more effective for weight loss than regular personal visits.

Outcomes
Telehealth consultations are more effective than in-person consultations because patients are more inclined to attend virtual visits to reduce the time they lose from work and the amount of time they must commute. Patients could also get more support with Telehealth versus in-person consultations with a weekly text message intended to increase the participant’s self-efficacy for health behavior changes. A virtual support group where participants can talk to their peers about challenges and share their personal experiences to help their struggling peers. Lastly, participants were given wearable activity trackers to monitor their physical activity. Monitoring their actions at leisure and getting support at any hour versus waiting for an in-person consultation has shown increased weight loss in young adults.

Conclusion
After reviewing a few clinical trial studies, Telehealth consultation was proven to be an effective way to lose weight. Participants can track their progress, have access to more support, and be able to save time by being able to do everything virtually. Whereas in-person consultation can be limited to how often the participant can get to a provider and may have a different level of support.