Introduction

Nutrition tracking apps are becoming increasingly popular as people become more conscious of their health and wellness. These apps allow users to track their food intake, monitor their macronutrient and micronutrient intake, and set goals for weight loss, muscle gain, or other health-related objectives. The popularity of nutrition-tracking apps has been driven by their convenience, ease of use, and ability to provide personalised feedback and recommendations (Duffey & Popkin, 2011).1

Lifestyle changes such as modern sedentary lifestyles), as well as other features of the obesogenic environment (e.g., physical design issues; political, social, and cultural aspects; the Inability to support, an active lifestyle and better dietary choices) have generated a complex environment for consumers to control their weight and diet. Obesity and overweight are the results of many environmental factors known to influence people’s food intake and physical activity (Zečević et al., 2021).2

With the proliferation of mobile phones, mobile applications (apps) that allow users to track their food intake are becoming more common. Mobile phones have various technical features such as wireless communication, wearable designs, and built-in cameras that can collect a wide range of information about people’s food intake and provide real-time feedback. In addition, people typically have higher satisfaction and preference for mobile phone-based diet assessment methods than traditional methods. (Shinozaki & Murakami, 2020).3

Convenience and accessibility of tracking your meals and nutrition on-the-go

Diet tracking apps helps improve self-management, goal-setting, knowledge, and self-efficacy. These are all important building blocks in behaviour change. These apps have the potential to facilitate health-related activity tracking and weight management. (Ferrara et al., 2019).4  They play an important role in people’s well-being, Activity tracking apps are often intended to help users with this, and the guidance provided ranges from general advice and tips from experts, peer pressure from social networking features, to specific It can take many forms, even reminders and notifications that encourage users to take action. (Gordon et al., 2019).5

Customized Meal Planning and Precise Nutrition Tracking with Barcode Scanning

Over the past decade, mobile applications have proliferated as smartphone users have grown. A popular category among all these apps is health and fitness-related apps that are primarily intended to support diet changes and weight management. These apps typically include a food diary feature that allows users to keep track of what they eat and how much they eat. Besides searching predefined food and drink lists and selecting predefined portion sizes, various functions are used to identify foods consumed, estimate portion sizes, and reduce the time and effort required for input. Examples of these capabilities are image-based food recognition and barcode scanners. (Zhang et al., 2019).6

Dietary apps offer a wide range of functions, such as scanning barcodes to determine food calories, comparing calories with the equivalent exercise required, providing real-time feedback, offering a virtual personal trainer, suggesting diet plans and recipes, recommending foods suitable for individuals with certain health conditions, enabling users to compare their activity with others, allowing users to compare their current activity with their past behavior, allowing users to post their activity on social media, sending push notifications to remind users to log their diet, enabling users to set specific goals, providing statistics (including data, images, charts, and bars) to compare behavior with goals, offering intangible rewards (such as points, badges, and comments), providing physical rewards (such as vouchers, gifts, and discounts), and offering judgments (such as scores and signal systems) for specific foods. (Ryan, 2022).7

Potential drawbacks of relying solely on nutrition tracking apps.

While many would-be buyers and users of apps base their decision on indicators of app popularity (such as ratings and several installations), the connection between app popularity and the presence of evidence-based behaviour change functions likely to increase an app’s effectiveness is still unknown. It may be helpful to compare the features offered in the most popular weight management apps’ free and paid/upgraded editions, especially when selecting applications with behaviour modification elements that are useful in aiding successful weight control. (Briggs et al., 2021).8

While more technically savvy people are often more likely to engage with digital media, social norms play a key role in adopting nutrition and diet applications. According to Lee et al., recordability, networkability, credibility, comprehensibility, and trendiness were the five criteria that had the most impact in predicting users’ intentions to continue using nutrition and diet applications. (Vasiloglou et al., 2021).9

Conclusion 

In conclusion, nutrition tracking apps have become increasingly popular as people strive to lead healthier lifestyles. These apps offer various functions that make it easy for users to monitor their food intake and set goals for weight loss, muscle gain, or other health-related objectives. The convenience and accessibility of tracking meals and nutrition on-the-go has made these apps more appealing to users. However, it is important to note that relying solely on nutrition tracking apps may have some drawbacks. The effectiveness of these apps depends on the evidence-based behaviour change functions they offer, and social norms play a crucial role in their adoption. As with any tool, it is important to use nutrition-tracking apps wisely and in conjunction with other healthy lifestyle habits for optimal results.

References

    1. Duffey, K. J., & Popkin, B. M. (2017). Energy density, portion size, and eating occasions: Contributions to increased energy intake in the United States, 1977-2006. //journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/authors?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001050
    2. Zečević, M., Mijatović, D., Kos Koklič, M., Žabkar, V., & Gidaković, P. (2021). User Perspectives of Diet-Tracking Apps: Reviews Content Analysis and Topic Modeling. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 23(4), e25160. //doi.org/10.2196/25160
    3. Shinozaki, N., & Murakami, K. (2020). Evaluation of the Ability of Diet-Tracking Mobile Applications to Estimate Energy and Nutrient Intake in Japan. Nutrients, 12(11), 3327. //doi.org/10.3390/nu12113327
    4. Ferrara, G., Kim, J., Lin, S., Hua, J., & Seto, E. (2019). A Focused Review of Smartphone Diet-Tracking Apps: Usability, Functionality, Coherence With Behavior Change Theory, and Comparative Validity of Nutrient Intake and Energy Estimates. JMIR MHealth and UHealth, 7(5), e9232. //doi.org/10.2196/mhealth.9232
    5. Gordon, M., Althoff, T., & Leskovec, J. (2019). Goal-setting And Achievement In Activity Tracking Apps: A Case Study Of MyFitnessPal. The World Wide Web Conference on   – WWW ’19. //doi.org/10.1145/3308558.3313432
    6. Zhang, L., Nawijn, E., Boshuizen, H., & Ocké, M. (2019). Evaluation of the Recipe Function in Popular Dietary Smartphone Applications, with Emphasize on Features Relevant for Nutrition Assessment in Large-Scale Studies. Nutrients, 11(1), 200. //doi.org/10.3390/nu11010200
    7. Ryan, M. (2022). The ethics of dietary apps: Technology, health, and the capability approach. Technology in Society, 68, 101873. //doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2022.101873
    8. Briggs, T., Quick, V., & Hallman, W. K. (2021). Feature Availability Comparison in Free and Paid Versions of Popular Smartphone Weight Management Applications. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 53(9), 732–741. //doi.org/10.1016/j.jneb.2021.05.010
    9. Vasiloglou, M. F., Christodoulidis, S., Reber, E., Stathopoulou, T., Lu, Y., Stanga, Z., & Mougiakakou, S. (2021). Perspectives and Preferences of Adult Smartphone Users Regarding Nutrition and Diet Apps: Web-Based Survey Study. Europepmc.org. //europepmc.org/article/pmc/pmc8367144#ref11

Affiliation:

  1. Dean and Distinguished University Professor at School of Public Health, University of Memphis, TN, USA
  2. Foundation of Healthcare Technologies Society, New Delhi, India