ABSTRACT
Increase of people with overweight and obesity is a serious health problem in many countries. An effective solution to this problem is for people to change their lifestyle. Strong fear appeal and high-efficacy message often produce such positive actions. Seeing one's own current body shape and body shape after gaining or losing weight may motivate people to start and continue actions that may improve health conditions. Targeting middle-aged males, we have developed a system to simulate the body shape after gains or loss of weight. The simulation is based on the information of inter-individual body shape variation described by principal components. We estimated seven circumferences after weight change, and these values as well as changed weight and height were used to estimate principal component scores. The body shape reconstructed from estimated principal component scores is adjusted for the segment lengths of the body that would not change after weight change. Finally seven circumferences are adjusted for the estimated target values. The developed system will be usable in fitness clubs for advising people for health actions.
