Lecture 17: Diet Apps Flashcards
What are diet apps?
Smartphone or online applications that allow users to enter their food intake and match food to large nutrient databases
Diet apps use similar approaches to standard methods such as…
Food records and 24 food recalls
What is My Fitness Pal?
- 200 million users
- > 19 million foods in its nutrient database
- Data for 15 nutrients
- Sets goals
What is Cronometer?
- > 10 million users
- Thousands of foods from various sources including product labels
- Every user entered food is reviewed
- 47 nutrients
What is Easy Diet Diary?
- 100,000 + installs in the google play store
- Australian food data
- Complete data for 11 nutrients
What are the advantages of diet apps?
- Food entered at time consumed
- Need little training
- Accessible with right resources
- Save time and money as food is not manually coded
- Allows self monitoring
- Discrete
What are the software disadvantages of diet apps?
- Limited food descriptions
- Nutrient data missing
- Nutrient databases not from NZ
- Limited capacity to add recipes
What are the disadvantages to untrained people using diet apps?
- Users are entering foods
- May have limited knowledge
- May be difficult to interpret
What do diet apps assume?
That you follow regular dietary patterns
What is the main disadvantages of diet apps?
- Large variations in relative validity (accuracy) compared to other methods
- Nutrient data missing (usually limited to the nutrients on the NIP)
What is the NIP?
Nutrition Information Panel
What must the NIP panel contain?
- Energy
- Carbohydrates
- Sugar
- Fat
- Saturated Fat
- Protein
- Sodium
Each country has differences in….
- Farming
- Climates
- Fortification
- Soils
- Preferences
- Plant life
- Common terms
What is this issue with ‘goal’ intakes on diet apps?
- Everyones energy requirements are different, on app are set as an average requirement
- Changes of your ‘goal’ energy intake being right for you is low
What is the only way you can tell if your energy intake is adequate?
BMI/Weight Trends
