SparkPeople
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| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Internet, Health, Weight loss |
| Founded | Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. (2000) |
| Headquarters | Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. |
| Website | www.SparkPeople.com |
SparkPeople is a private company which develops and maintains several healthy living websites. The best known website is SparkPeople.com.
SparkPeople.com has a free daily calculator & tracker for daily calories consumed, and a number of other resources, including meal plans, for those who want to lose weight. Spark People assumes people will buy food in their local supermarket. It does not sell food. The tracker library has a comprehensive list of ordinary and brand name foods. Tracking is based on calories, although it is possible, and easy, to track carbohydrates, fat, or nutrients such as calcium, folic acid, iron, or sodium, or almost any labelled nutrient that the user wishes to monitor. Persons can add to the foods in the database, and the foods users add are available to all other users, which can be very helpful on some of the newer food choices.
Spark People's tracker is unique in that, unlike the Weight Watcher's Online Tools, it is completely without charge to the user, although the site makes money from advertisers. Spark People's calculator and daily diary/tracker are easier to use than the also free Department of Agriculture calculator, and there is a social component to the Spark People site that is missing from the Department of Agriculture site. The Spark People site does send out daily or weekly emails, but one can indicate a preference not to receive the emails at registration or later in the preferences area. SparkPeople also produces an iPhone app for daily tracking of calories consumed.
In addition to tracking their food and exercise, users may also set personal goals that they tick off each day, e.g. exercise 10 minutes a day, quiet reflection 10 minutes, etc. The site has many group activities and provides for users to create their own blogs, receive emails from other users, post opinions on articles, form clubs (ie Canadians, +100 lbs, diabetics, high blood pressure, men, etc.), and is a wholesome site for those persons who, although overweight, are seeking to live a better life and communicate with others in a similar situation.
The site seems to understand the needs of the long term dieter, who has more than 50 or 100 pounds to lose (22 or 40 kg), including the need for social support, avoiding body hatred, reducing emotional eating, increasing movement, and promoting positive social interaction. Exercise goals and recommendations are realistic for older, sedentary, or very overweight people, or people with co-morbid conditions.
Because the site is completely without charge to the user, because it is not associated with any commercial weight loss programs, and because it sells no foods, but simply provides free online tools and a social network environment, there is a "feeling" about the site that it is provided by a person who has suffered to other people who also suffer as a community service, although again, the site makes money from advertisements.
Spark People,com is a private company which is stated to be "employee owned". There is some speculation that it is owned by Nicholas Sparks, the author, given the common "Spark" name, which is unique and has no bearing on weight loss, although this is pure rumour. Chris Downie is stated in company press releases to be the SparkPeople.com Founder and CEO, and Steve Chase of AOL the sole minority investor.
SparkPeople.com announced on February 15, 2012 that during January 2012 that there were 10 million visitors to the website, making it the most visited fitness & weight loss site on the internet. SparkPeople.com was named the winner of BusinessWeek's Best of The Web : Health in 2006[1], 2007[2], and 2008 [3]. In January 2007, SparkPeople.com was ranked by Hitwise as the 6th most visited site in the "Health and Medical - Wellbeing" category (and 3rd among diet sites).[4]
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[edit] Websites
Spark People company literature describes the SparkPeople websites as follows:
[edit] SparkPeople.com
This site offers a free four-stage diet program which uses tools, content, and support to help users make lifestyle changes. Users are prompted to enter height, weight, and amount they intend to exercise, as well as a target date and weight. The site then gives recommendations for calorie, fat, and carbohydrate intake based on calculated BMR, as well as a personalized fitness plan. Users can enter the foods they eat and exercises they complete and are given feedback via charts and prompts on their progress. The site also has numerous articles on nutrition, fitness, motivation, and general health. Support is provided through other users and experts on messageboards as well as from social networking features like member pages, teams of users with some common bond (like quilting or college students), and blog
One of the features of the website is SparkDiet, a proprietary diet program. The four stages of the diet are:
- Fast Break, which gives users a simple goal to complete for several weeks in order to provide a springboard toward other goals.
- Healthy Diet Habits, which aims at various pillars of success in diet such as portion control, exercising consistently, and drinking water.
- Lifestyle change, which teaches consistency and constant motivation in health and diet goals.
- Spread the Spark, which gives tips and goals to continue a person's goals and to teach others.
There is no charge for any of these "programs" and they are optional, that is, one can use the free daily tracker and all the social networking without anything else.
[edit] Babyfit.com
SparkPeople also offers a modified version of its healthy living program to pregnant women through its site Babyfit.com. Babyfit uses similar tools and forums to SparkPeople.com to guide pregnant women through a healthy pregnancy and beyond. It also covers topics such as parenting and breastfeeding and offers some of the same social networking features as SparkPeople.
[edit] SparkRecipes.com
SparkRecipes.com offers users the ability to catalog, rate, and share recipes, especially healthy recipes, and gives users the nutritional information about their recipes. It also offers the ability to add these recipes to their daily food log on SparkPeople.
[edit] dailySpark.com
dailySpark is a healthy lifestyle blog authored daily by SparkPeople experts.
[edit] References
- ^ "Business Week Online: Best of the Web 2006". http://www.businessweek.com/technology/bestof2006/results/health.html. Retrieved 2007-09-24.
- ^ "Readers Make Their Votes Count - BusinessWeek". http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/09/0924_bestofweb/source/1.htm. Retrieved 2007-09-24.
- ^ "Business Week Online: Best of the Web 2008". http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/09/0929_loved_websites/12.htm. Retrieved 2008-09-29.
- ^ "Category Spotlight : Health and Medical - Wellbeing". http://www.hitwise.com/news/us200701.html. Retrieved 2007-09-24.
