My Fitness Pal is an app you can download on any Apple or Android product. It allows you to track your progress with weight loss, gain or maintenance. You input the food you eat into a calorie counter that tracks the protein, carbs, fats, vitamins, etc. that are in the food and compare it to the amount of each nutrients that you need. You can even help your friends lose weight by encouraging them and tracking their progress as well.
What's cool about this app is it does the calculating and management for you. The only thing you need to do is eat and track. The database has a variety of foods, drinks, and exercises that can easily be adjusted at any time. If the database does not contain the food or exercise you did, you can always "Quick Add" calories or "invent" the food yourself. It's also free and easy to use.This software also contains the correct amount of protein, fiber, calcium, etc. for a person of each weight, height, age and gender.
What's not cool about this app is it can be very time consuming and monotonous. It can also have a tenancy to promote the "thin ideal" that Rosen talked about in his chapter on eating disorders. It is very easy to change the calories to a very low amount like 300, which is what the average person with anorexia nervosa would eat in a day and the app would not alert anyone of this restriction and allow the person to continue to starve. Wolf would probably be more on the fence about this app because while it does help us organize our eating habits and thoughts, it might be doing all the thinking for us.
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I completely concur with the point made that this app can further breed eating disorder tendencies. Many women and even men get easily caught up in the "psychology" of the app (i.e. it becomes a challenge to eat the least number of calories possible). This app, rather than traditional writing down what you eat and counting the calories after the fact, makes calorie counting much easier, which could be potentially harmful. Many could argue that this is just making things easier, but to argue that would be to discount the exponentially growing number of individuals with eating disorders.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Collins, Allan & Halverson, Richard (2009) in their work, "Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology," this app is another example of the way the world of teaching is further utilizing technology. In their book the authors discuss how teaching methods have shifted from the traditional style to using technology as a major tool. They would argue that a dietitian would be more suited to help one figure out the number of calories necessary for an individual per day, and also how many of those calories need to be allotted to each category (fat, carbs, etc.)
The My Fitness Pal app has many neat features that offer a positive and effective way to keep track of what you eat on a daily basis in order to achieve your personal weight goals. I think it is great that it shows you your percentage levels for proteins, carbs and such because it lets you see what the foods you are eating really have in them in these terms, instead of just showing you the calories. Another thing that I like about the app is how easy it is to find the foods that you eat. The achievements that the app allows you to get are also a good feature because it lets you feel like you are achieving a goal other than just your goal weight.
ReplyDeleteA common example that pertains to the negatives presented is that many users overcompensate for what they eat and therefore eat less calories than recommended without even realizing it. This can lead to unhealthy levels of eating and possibly even eating disorders. Even though this is a very serious issue, I think the good outweighs the bad for this app.
In addition to Rosen's chapter on eating disorders, I think this technology also has applications in his chapters (three and four) on obsessively checking in with technology and "getting high" on technology. Because this technology needs to be checked before each meal if it is to be used properly, it can easily begin to "disrupt normal schedules" in unprecedented ways. And for those with eating disorders, this application may also provide a new type of "high" that will help to distract from eating or further encourage their eating disorders.
ReplyDeleteI think this technology definitely would resonate with what I am learning from Carr. I feel that the ideas behind this are sound, as nutrition and exercise are important. I feel that technology as a whole and this example of it should be used as teaching tools but should not be depended on as it diminishes us. Carr talks about the progression of learning and how Plato would write on how writing and books diminished us, so perhaps my perception of this app is similar.
ReplyDeleteI think Turkle would see this as another stress or anxiety that keeps us constantly connected and tethered to the web. In her book on page 257 she talks about a boy and says, "Brad says that he no longer sees online life as a place to relax and be himself 'because things get recorded.... it's just another thing you have to keep in the back of your mind, that you have to do things very carefully." Although this app is designed to keep your intake of food in the back of your mind, it can be quite a stress for some naturally anxiety-ridden people that everything you eat will be recorded and kept forever.
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