(PS12-61) Associations Between Gamification Component Usage and 1-month Weight Loss in a 12-month Gamified Weight Loss Program

Obesity/overweight is a significant public health concern, contributing to an increase in overall rates of morbidity and mortality. However, standard behavioral weight loss (SBWL) interventions show limited effectiveness in terms of promoting clinically significant weight loss. Gamification may be able to significantly augment the acceptability and efficacy of SBWL interventions by increasing intrinsic motivation for weight loss behaviors (e.g., dietary self-monitoring, exercise) that are often considered burdensome and/or uncomfortable. However, little is known about which gamification components may be most associated with weight loss outcomes, which is critical for optimizing gamified interventions. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine whether utilization of reward/incentive-based gamification components or social interaction-based gamification components best predicts weight change at 1 month. This study uses data from an ongoing parent study - a 2x2 factorial randomized controlled trial that examines the independent and combinatorial effects of gamification (gamification ON or gamification OFF) or inhibitory control training (active ICT or sham ICT) on men’s weight loss. In all conditions of the parent study, participants are provided with a smartphone application that hosts a 12-month SBWL program. The gamified version of the application includes components such as badges, a customizable spaceship, team campaigns, leaderboards, and an option to “react" to other participants’ accomplishments. Our sample is composed of 45 men with overweight/obesity who had been randomized to the gamification ON condition and completed the 1-month assessment of the parent study (target N = 228). We created two composite z-scores to represent overall engagement with reward/incentive-based gamification components (an aggregate of four app metrics) and overall engagement with social interaction-based gamification components (an aggregate of six app metrics). We hypothesized that usage of social interaction-based components would best predict 1-month weight change, and that increased usage of these components would be associated with decreased 1-month weight change (i.e.,  increased weight loss). A multiple linear regression demonstrated that, contrary to our hypotheses, usage of reward/incentive-based components better predicted 1-month weight change (β = .35, t(42) = 2.23, p = .03, sr2 = .10) compared to usage of social interaction-based components (β = -.27, t(42) = -1.72, p = .09, sr2 = .06). However, usage of reward/incentive-based components was positively associated with weight change at 1 month, such that for every 1-unit increase in the z-score, percent weight change increased by 1.03% (i.e., a weight gain rather than a loss). These results demonstrate that individual gamification components may be differentially associated with weight loss outcomes. However, future research should replicate this study in a larger sample, and experimental studies must be conducted to definitively establish whether certain gamification components are more effective than others at incentivizing weight loss.