SparkPeople

Infobox Company
name = SparkPeople, Inc.

type = Private
foundation = Cincinnati,Ohio, U.S. (2000)
location_city = Cincinnati,Ohio
location_country = U.S.
industry = Internet, Health, Weight loss
slogan = "Make Your Life an Adventure"
homepage = [http://www.sparkpeople.com/ www.SparkPeople.com]

SparkPeople is a company which develops and maintains several healthy living websites.

SparkPeople's goal is to show people that they can use health and fitness to improve other areas of their lives, both personal and professional.

Websites

parkPeople.com

The primary site, [http://www.sparkpeople.com www.SparkPeople.com] offers a free four-stage SparkDiet 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 SparkPeople experts on messageboards as well as from social networking features like member pages (SparkPages), teams (SparkTeams) of users with some common bond (like quilting or college students), and blogs.

SparkPeople.com was named the winner of BusinessWeek's Best of The Web : Health in 2006cite web | title = Business Week Online: Best of the Web 2006 | url = http://www.businessweek.com/technology/bestof2006/results/health.html | accessdate = 2007-09-24] , 2007cite web | title = Readers Make Their Votes Count - BusinessWeek | url = http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/09/0924_bestofweb/source/1.htm | accessdate = 2007-09-24] , and 2008 cite web | title = Business Week Online: Best of the Web 2008 | url = http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/09/0929_loved_websites/12.htm | accessdate = 2008-09-29] .

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).cite web | title = Category Spotlight : Health and Medical - Wellbeing | url = http://www.hitwise.com/news/us200701.html | format = | doi = | accessdate = 2007-09-24]

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.

Babyfit.com

SparkPeople also offers a modified version of its healthy living program to pregnant women through its site [http://www.babyfit.com Babyfit.com] . Babyfit uses similar tools and forums to the [http://www.sparkpeople.com www.SparkPeople.com] site 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.

parkRecipes.com

[http://www.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.

parkTeens.com

In August 2007, SparkPeople launched [http://www.sparkteens.com SparkTeens.com] which offers a modified version of the SparkDiet diet program specifically tailored to the needs of 13 - 17 year olds and aims to tackle the problems of childhood obesity. SparkTeens offers similar tools, content, and social networking features to the SparkPeople.com site modified the specific needs of teenagers.

References

External links

* [http://www.sparkpeople.com www.SparkPeople.com]
* [http://www.babyfit.com Babyfit.com]
* [http://www.sparkrecipes.com SparkRecipes.com]
* [http://www.sparkteens.com SparkTeens.com]