Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Telemedicine and Applications Volume 2013, Article ID 785654, 5 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/785654 Research Article Mobile Phone Short Message Service (SMS) for Weight Management in Iranian Overweight and Obese Women: A Pilot Study Somayeh Faghanipour, 1 Eftekharalsadat Hajikazemi, 2 Soghra Nikpour, 2 Shabnam al-Sadat Shariatpanahi, 3 and Agha Fatemeh Hosseini 4 1 School of Nursing and Midwifery and Center for Nursing Care Research, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, P.O. Box 1419733171, Tehran, Iran 2 Center for Nursing Care Research, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, P.O. Box 1995614111, Tehran, Iran 3 School of Nursing and Midwifery, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, P.O. Box 1419733171, Tehran, Iran 4 School of Health Management & Medical Information Science, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, P.O. Box 1995614111, Tehran, Iran Correspondence should be addressed to Efekharalsadat Hajikazemi; efekharalsadat@hotmail.com Received 31 March 2013; Revised 17 July 2013; Accepted 29 July 2013 Academic Editor: Velio Macellari Copyright © 2013 Somayeh Faghanipour et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. We conducted a text message-based intervention for weight management over three months by two months intervention and one month wash-out period. In a quasi-experimental study with control ( = 40) and experimental group ( = 40), 80 overweight and obese employed women were entered. Participants were recruited via announcement. All subjects attended a face-to-face information session and received a booklet that contained food calorie chart and strategies and recommendations for weight management. Te experimental group received text messages (SMS) about weight management twice a day for two months, in addition to the information and the booklet which they had received in the information session. Also, the experimental group was instructed to weekly self-weight and to send the data to the principle researcher. All subjects were measured for baseline and secondary weight in a standardized manner by a nurse, and the data were compared between the two groups. Experimental group lost more weight than the control group (1.5 kg diference,  = 0.018). Text messaging seems to be an efective channel of communication for weight management in Iranian overweight and obese women. Te clinical trial registration number is IRCT201204029360N1 . 1. Introduction In recent decades, the prevalence of obesity has increased to an alarming degree throughout the world. According to World Health Organization’s (WHO) report, developing countries parallel to developed world are experiencing a growing trend in the incidence of obesity and overweight. Tey are joining the global pandemic of obesity because of modernization and urbanization [1, 2]. Overweight and obesity are important risk factors for diabetes type II, insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, selected cancers, and premature death [3]. Obesity is closely associ- ated with some psychological disturbances such as poor body image and self-esteem, depression, and anxiety, particularly in women [4, 5]. From 1999 to 2008, the prevalence of overweight Iranian women adults has dramatically increased from 40.6% to 61%. In the same time period, the prevalence of obese Iranian women has risen from 14.17% to 29.5%. [6]. Tis increase has been more common among Iranian women than Iranian men [7, 8]. Despite the numerous clinical and commercial weight loss programs in Iran, many individuals hardly use such programs because of various limitations including time, cost, transportation, beside, women who work outside the home have more constraints than others. Terefore, evaluation of diferent approaches is necessary to fnd an efective,