Smartphone Addiction/ Overuse and Its Effect on Dietary Behavior and Lifestyle -A Systematic Review

Smartphones have progressively been turned out to be the most important segment of our lives because of their several advantages but in recent modern years, the negative consequences of smartphone useage has also been raised. Intention to write this review was to summarize the evidences that have illustrated a significant influence of smartphone addiction/overuse on the dietary behavior and lifestyle of university/college/school students. Research was conducted in accordance with the principles of systematic review. Four databases were searched and found total 62 studies, and only 12 relevant observational, open access studies were extracted that included participants with smartphone addiction/overuse, and its effect on dietary behaviors, the sleep habits and physical activity or exercise pattern. All the studies stated negative correlation between smartphone addiction/overuse and dietary behavior, sleep pattern and physical activity. Investigations of all the included studies stated that, due to excessive use of smartphones, students had poor eating behavior, and were more likely to develop nutritional deficiencies and might suffer from health consequences and psychopathologies. Students wo had smartphone addiction adopted a sedentary lifestyle, and were more prone to suffer from physical fitness and might develop non-communicable diseases like CVD and obesity in future. In all studies researchers suggested the common intervention that effective nutrition education and awareness programs must be initiated to bring students toward healthy lifestyle.