The Need

With growing awareness and a push towards healthy dieting and exercise, particularly among citizens of developed nations such as the U.S., demand for ways to monitor health metrics continues to grow. As a result the global market for mobile health-based applications has exponentially grown in recent years, with the latest available data from Research2Guidance estimating over 259,000 health applications that are available to consumers as of 2016. However, no known application features the automated capability, on an active basis, to measure the weight and height of children though sensors.

The Market

With the vast amount of applications within the mobile health app market is a function of its large and ever-increasing user base. As of 2016, mHealth (mobile health) applications had 3.2 billion downloads.

The Technology

The app would be able to objectively measure a child's weight in either pounds or kilograms, like a scale. Similarly, the app would be able to detect a child's height. An adult would be able to enter/self-report the child’s gender and date of birth. These combined factors would be entered into an algorithm to objectively determine child BMI%. There are other weight monitoring apps and BMI calculator apps. However, these apps traditionally required the user to enter self-reported data. There are also a distance measuring apps (eg. How far from phone to point off in distance), however, they have not been used for collecting a person’s height. Initially, this application could be used in pediatric health to monitor child growth (*however, this app could be broadened to adult populations). In pediatrics, advantages of this technology are that it provides a mechanism for families and pediatric primary care providers to communicate and closely self-monitor child growth without the logistical burden of a clinic visit (e.g. every three-month monitoring vs annual visits). This tool also has applicability in research as a data collection tool. It has public health relevance because it could be used to help change the trajectory of the childhood obesity epidemic. Lastly, this application could be utilized by insurance companies vested in the welfare of the patients they cover. Sales of this technology will include an accessory for obtaining the height and weight of the child. The accessory will resemble a portable foam pad roughly the size of a piece of paper. It will contian pressure sensors used to determine the weight, and height will be determined from the ground up - similar to other algorithmic driven apps. The pad can be bluetooth enabled or have an adapter to connect to a mobile device.

Commerical Applications

• Software
• Pediatrics
• Healthcare

Benefits

• Easier to measure height and weight of children
• More information to properly track growth of a child
• Could help to change the trajectory of childhood obesity