Martinus Evans is a man on a mission, to get healthy, lose weight, run his first full marathon in October and blog about every step of the way. Known by his popular online moniker “300 Pounds and Running,” Martinus recently attended FitBloggin to mingle with fellow fitness fans and flash his infectious smile. In one short year he’s gone from sedentary college student with muscle aches and fatigue to a grad student writing his master’s thesis on social media/blogging and weight loss.
If you’ve got 10 minutes to spare, he could use your help.
Martinus is currently conducting a short survey to aid in the collection of data for his thesis. If you’re a weight loss blog writer or reader, he’s looking for you!
Click here to take the online survey about why you write or read blogs about weight loss. You’ll be part of the very first social media study of its kind and just for playing along, you’ll automatically be entered in a drawing to receive one of three $100 gift cards to the store of your choice.
The joint study between the University of Massachusetts and University of Connecticut, titled “Weight Loss Bloggers and Readers: Who Are They and What Do They Get Out of It,” was given the official green light by Dr. Sherry Pagoto, principal investigator.
“My vision for the study was to get data on a segment of the population that wasn’t being studied,” Martinus said. “From the beginning, Dr. Pagoto was very encouraging and embraced the idea.”
From the study: The purpose of this study is to learn more about the types of people who blog and the benefits they experience from writing a weight loss blog or reading someone else’s weight loss blog. We know very little about the type of people who blog and the benefits (and challenges) they experience, or the benefits had by reading weight loss blogs. The purpose of this study is to be the first to explore this.
Dr. Pagoto knows a little something about the reach of social media. Her plank-a-day revolution is still going strong on Twitter. Started more than two years ago, the plank-a-day challenge asks participants to hold the core-strengthening “plank” pose for at least one minute and then report in by using the hashtag #plankaday.
Martinus hopes to reach his goal of 400 participants on the survey very soon so he can start crunching numbers and looking at all the data. “We really want to know the benefits people get by writing or reading these kinds of blogs,” Martinus explained. “We’re excited to break new ground.”
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