Tracking food can improve weight loss but risks distorting your relationship with food. Subscribe to Nourishable at https://www.youtube.com/c/Nourishable

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Food tracking apps make it easy to document everything you eat as you eat it. Scientific data shows that tracking food improves weight loss. But there's also the psychological side, which suggests that obsessive tracking can distort your relationship with food. I was surprised by how much I learned from MyFitnessPal. The theory is that the act of tracking increases awareness to then change behavior. In nutrition research, we call this dietary self-monitoring. Some studies have used food tracking apps to encourage healthy eating in general. The results were quite mixed, although it's difficult to compare all studies because they used many different apps. Applications should be targeted to specific populations. Maybe an app encouraging teens to drink less soda will be more effective through tik tok, but it won't work for my mom. Most research focuses on weight loss programs. Using diet tracking apps led to greater weight loss in a meta-analysis, at least in the short term. Many people experience weight cycling. The goal is to be a maintainer – someone who loses weight and keeps it off. Long-term dietary self-monitoring is an important tool for people who are successfully maintaining their diet. Consistency of food recording was important for maintaining weight loss, but the level of detail did not seem to matter. Using food tracking apps to document everything you eat can make you obsessive. Strict calorie caps and macroeconomic goals gamify eating in a dichotomous way. This black and white thinking about diet and weight is detrimental to physical and mental health. Many dietitians are concerned that these apps may trigger, maintain, or exacerbate eating disorders. How do you know if these apps are helping or harming you? “As with most questions related to nutrition and health, I don’t think there is a yes or no answer.” Studying this question is very difficult because the studies use many different applications, different control groups, and short time frames. Plus, you're not just a statistic in a study. You are a person seeking a positive relationship with food, one that encompasses food, habits and culture. Food tracking apps can be a great educational tool, but be wary of red flags indicating a turn toward obsession. Using a food tracking app for a few days every few months can raise awareness of your habits, target factors for change, and recalibrate toward a healthier eating pattern. Since the level of detail isn't as important, try less cumbersome tools, like an app that counts portions of fruits and vegetables.

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