Following an acquisition last year by WW (formerly Weight Watchers), Kurbo Health has retooled and relaunched its weight loss app and coaching services as Kurbo by WW. The tool not only sports a new look, but now includes a new focus on healthy behavior and wellness promotion that’s designed with children and adolescents in mind.
This subtle shift in approach comes in part from hands-on audience...
Anthem Blue Cross, a BCBS plan that covers the state of California, is the first of several Anthem payers nationwide to launch a pilot with Kurbo Health to use its app and online coaching to help treat childhood obesity. The initial pilot includes 100 young patients. Anthem is also working with San Benito Medical Associates, a local provider in the California county with the highest incidence of...
Academics in Australia at the University of Queensland have launched a three-year research project that will examine the impact of using digital health tools in physical education programs with kids. The project has received $177,000 AUS (about $137,000 US dollars) from the Australian Research Council Discovery Grant and is being conducted in collaboration with researchers in Melbourne and...
The CS Mott Children's Hospital at the University of Michigan is launching a new telemedicine program to help reduce childhood obesity. The hospital will work with Fruit Street, a recently-formed digital wellness and telemedicine platform, to provide a program for patients that integrates video visits with monitoring via wearable devices.
"Childhood obesity is a significant public health concern...
Palo Alto, California-based Kurbo Health, which is developing a mobile-enabled program aimed at preventing childhood obesity, has raised $4 million new funding in addition to the $1.8 million we reported on in May. The round was led by Signia Ventures and other investors include Data Collective, Bessemer Venture Partners, Promus Ventures, and angel investors: Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube, and...
New York City-based patient engagement company Kognito has partnered with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Institute for Healthy Childhood Weight (IHCW) to create an app that addresses childhood obesity, called Change Talk: Childhood Obesity.
"The goal of the app is really to help healthcare professionals who work with pediatric populations to know how to manage challenging conversations...
Exercise and nutrition smartphone apps for children do not use the top recommended behaviors and strategies that were developed to prevent pediatric obesity, according to a report published in Childhood Obesity.
Some of the expert-recommended behaviors that the report looked for included eating five fruits and vegetables per day, exercising for one hour every day, watching TV for no more than two...
By Padma Nagappan
Children are generally active when they are young but their level of activity often tapers off as they enter their teens, which leads to a high incidence of obesity, associate professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine Donna Spruijt-Metz said during her remarks at the WLSA's Wireless Health 2012 event last week. The number...
Getting people to embrace motivational gaming for health and fitness may be a struggle, but some new data suggest that the concept works well when used properly.
Results of a study presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the Obesity Society in San Antonio, Texas, found that 59 percent of adolescents using Zamzee, an activity meter that resembles a USB drive, had higher levels of physical...
Fitlinxx Actiped clip-on activity monitors
Boston-based Partners HealthCare and its Center for Connected Health recently announced plans to expand its connected fitness program, Partners Step It Up, to six Boston public schools this years. The healthcare system made the announcement at a visit to one of the schools with US HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The expansion builds on a pilot launch...
