An App a Day Keeps the Doctor Away
ARTICLES of GENERAL INTEREST
AN APP A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTOR AWAY
People these days seem more health conscious than ever and there is now a wealth of technology to help us to eat healthily and get fitter. A lot is readily available on our mobile phones but with a multitude of apps to choose from, the difficulty is to know where to start.
Healthy eating apps offer features like calorie counting, meal planning, barcode scanning for nutrition information, recipe suggestions, and habit tracking. They cater for different goals, from weight loss and macro tracking to mindful eating, with some using psychology-based approaches or focusing on specific diets like veganism.
A good look at one of these apps provides an opportunity to see what they are all about and crucially what ordinary people and the experts think about them. Yuka apparently has 77 million users and is popular because it is so easy to use. The app scans food & personal care products to decipher their ingredients and evaluate their impact on your health. In a world of incomprehensible labels, Yuka claims to provide clarity in one quick scan so you can make clear-sighted purchases. The app scans barcodes to rate products (0-100) based on health impact, ingredient quality, and nutritional value. In this system, 75-100 rates is Excellent, 50-75 Good, 25-50 Poor and 0-25 Bad. A lot of further information is provided on each product should you wish to delve down into the detail.
Yuka claims that its ratings are based on evidence provided by a range of official bodies such as the European Food Safety Authority and the National Agency for Food and Occupational Health Safety. However, it has been criticised by experts for oversimplifying nutritional science, fostering food fear, and lacking context on ingredient concentration. Some nutrition experts caution that its additive focus might oversimplify nutrition and that whole foods are key. It seems that the verdict is it is a useful tool alongside general nutritional knowledge rather than a complete guide.
The NHS Food Scanner app is a free, user-friendly tool aimed at helping families make healthier food choices by scanning product barcodes to reveal salt, sugar, and saturated fat levels. It uses augmented reality to display nutritional data, suggesting healthier alternatives (“swaps”) to encourage better dietary habits. While praised for improving nutritional awareness and being child-friendly, users note limited product databases (missing some discount store items) and occasional inaccuracies in data.
The apps are fun to use and the results are quite often very surprising, with products you were sure are healthy rating as bad for you, and others you were wary of, achieving a high nutritional rating. Some of the others include:
MyFitnessPal: Huge food database, barcode scanner, tracks calories and macros, integrates with other apps.
Lose It!: Calorie tracking, exercise logging, and goal setting.
Noom: Uses psychology to build sustainable habits.
Ate Food Journal: Focuses on mindful eating.
VNutrition: For plant-based diets, tracks nutritional targets.
Lifesum: Tools for weight, habits, and general healthy eating.
Weight Watchers (WW): Tracks food, exercise, and points