ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Digital Public Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1632598
This article is part of the Research TopicDigital Health Literacy as a Pathway to Better Mental Well-beingView all articles
The Code of Sustainable Success in Fitness Apps: Social Comparison Mechanism Enabled by User Facilitated Supports
Provisionally accepted
- 1Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China
- 2Jilin University of Finance and Economics, Changchun, China
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Integrating social comparison theory and social support theory, this study develops a holistic model examining how fitness app social features influence sustainable development of users. This study not only extends the influence of user facilitated support, but also explores the social comparison factors, providing unique insights into interpreting the mechanism of continuous use intention and fitness intention. Analyzing the empirical data extracted from the survey questionnaire, this study finds that information support, emotional support and upward comparison affect social presence and fitness interest positively, which in turn affect continuous use intention and fitness intention positively. Interestingly, downward comparison affects social presence negatively. These findings provide references for fitness platform practitioners to design marketing strategies and thus improve the sustainable commercial value of fitness apps. In addition, the results can be applied to promote users' fitness motivation and thus offer sustainable health value to the society.
Keywords: Sustainable success, Fitness app, Social comparison theory, social support theory, Public Health
Received: 21 May 2025; Accepted: 25 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wu, Li and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yang Liu, Jilin University of Finance and Economics, Changchun, China
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