A Literature Review and an Investigation on Gamified Mobile Apps in Health and Fitness

Abstract

Last years, gamification is applied more and more on various fields the vast majority of them via mobile apps and smartphones; and has become a relative standpoint of any UI/UX design. It is an innovative business model that focuses on applying game mechanics to non-game contexts aiming at transforming activities, services and products to afford gameful experiences as well as attract and engage audiences, generating motivational, social, emotional and cognitive benefits, and bring out a little fun into everyday activities. Regarding health and fitness, gamification is applied to offer various benefits for motivating individuals’ behavior change. Its gamification mechanics stimulate users be more competitive when they try to accomplish a challenge for a health or/and fitness issue. The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, a literature review on gamification systems in mobile health apps and particularly in fitness is presented. Hence, a total of 21 articles are classified and analyzed. As evidenced by the literature review, gamification can help patients increase physical activity, improve eating and living habits and regulate body weight. Second, a review of mobile gamified apps in the field of fitness revealed 20 apps with a good response from users, a large number of installations and high rating. Although gamification is used in mobile health to some extent, the results of both the literature review and the mobile apps’ review are even more encouraging for the near future as the initial results show a prosperous intention of gamification’s adoption in health and fitness mobile apps.