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.
Here is our Prezi!
