Health App Research | Course Paper

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CODING

Paul Bieame 19078320

Medi Kibambe

Task 1

Introduction:

Taking care of health is the most important thing we can do in our lives as it can benefit in a

very long run and save us from the troubles of spending huge sum on money later on. To

maintain a healthy lifestyle, diet has to be taken care of all the time. These days with the

mass availability of all kinds of applications on smartphone allow us to utilize this and take

care of our health and diet where ever we are.

The top 3 applications I chose today for on this topic are:

MyFitnessPal, Lifesum and Nike training

Research on each fitness app

MyFitnessPal

MyFitnessPal is a free android app that counts your calorie and manages your training

programs from body weight workout at home or gym workout which helps you track your

progress such as gaining weight, losing weight and the number of calories you have burned,

it includes features such as journal to help better track your food diary. MyFitnessPal does

not only track your exercise but it tracks the food that you eat through out the day such as

lunch, breakfast, snack and dinner. When users use MyFitnessPal on a regular basis the

app will remember the foods that you eat and make logging in faster. MyFitnessPal also

includes a barcode scanning features where users of the app can scan new food my clicking

on the barcode icon next to the search bar, after scanning the barcode the app gives all

information containing the product. (lea, 2019)

Strengths and weakness of the app

MyFitnessPal includes a number of strengths one of them which is the easy to use interface

and the design features that helps users to better understand what each function is used for,

it is also a free android app for any users looking forward to changing their lifestyle, the app

includes direct feedback that provides information specifically made for you and what best

for you. (Bearden, 2018)

while the app includes fancy features it also has some of its own weakness which are

inconsistent of updating, mobile dependability and health drawback

Inconsistent update of the barcode scanner because sometimes the scanner will not find the

product and needs to be updated constant and it does not let members edit certain amount

of consumed food. (Bearden, 2018)

Mobile dependability because there is no wireless signal and sometimes people might find

themselves in areas with no wireless signals and will not be able to record their data in the

diary

Health drawback because counting calories is not enough for a health lifestyle because

different types of food may affect the body in different type of ways even though they might

have the same amount of calories (Bearden, 2018)

The innovative feature of MyFitnessPal would be importing feature where you import

workouts from other fitness tracking apps such as runkeeper as well as the recipe importer.

And last but not least is the community where other users of the app can exchange tips and

advice as well as creating relationships by sharing personal experiences or struggles. The

app also allows users to set daily goals for themselves

Screenshot of MyFitnessPal

Lifesum

This is a very famous diet app that more than 10M+ users have downloaded on just the

Google store itself. It is a mixture of meal planner with loads of recipes and tips available to

users. It also supports carb tracking and helps users find the most suitable diet plan. This

app also allows for barcode scan of food items to automatically read the carbs, calories,

protein and fats it has in it without user having to enter it him/herself. The weakness of this

app is that it does not constitute of workout plans or exercises for users as they will still need

a different application for it. This is also compatible with Google Fit and S health and allows