FoodT Initial Reaction

FoodT is a new app that aims to help people eat less calories daily and make better food choices going forward. This is done by playing a short game on an Android app. I'm going to be using it for a full 30 days to see how it changes my eating habits, if at all, but I wanted to give my initial thoughts about the strange little game you're required to play, as well as my thoughts on how misreporting will skew results collected by this app making the idea of 'research' laughable. 

FoodT is played by clicking healthy foods that are circled with a green border, such as fruits and vegetables. Less healthy, sugary and fatty foods like cookies and sodas are circled with a red border and you do not click on these. It is broken into 3 rounds. That's all there is to it.

In the first round there are flowers worked in randomly throughout the food items; some green circled and some red so you have to rely on the border to know if you should click it or not. You may not even notice the item in the border if you end up just focusing on the border. On top of that many of the healthy foods they circle in green are ones I find detestable. It didn't make me want them more, and I doubt any amount of time training myself will make me like mushrooms since I find they taste like moldy dirt. It would probably help if they got a list of foods you do like (or at least a list of healthy foods you find disgusting to not show) to help along with the training.

Round 2 had a bunch of staplers, scissors, pens and other office supplies throughout. Actually by throughout I mean the majority of my round 2 was these office supplies just randomly circled with green or red. I'm really not sure what this is going for.

Round 3 had random articles of clothing mixed with the food.

I really don't get the random non-food items. This encourages paying attention to the border rather than what's inside the border. I guess they're hoping it's a subconscious thing, but then what am I being subconsciously trained to think about socks if they're both green and red? Should I have a sock if I'm a bit peckish? Am I being trained to think socks are just a sometimes clothing item? I don't get it.  

And finally, is this going to work for research? No. Why? Because people routinely misreport what they eat and drink on a daily basis. Even when asked what they ate yesterday they will misreport the type or size of the food, making it less caloric than it really was. This effect is even more pronounced when someone is trying to lose weight, as they only remember the healthier choices they made and not the more fatty, sugary caloric food choices. This is why food trackers are so important for people trying to lose weight; no guess work involved, write it down as soon as you put it in your face. It's laughable that they think any 'research' can be collected from this. 

But we'll see how it goes. I will be doing the game before every meal for 30 days. I also track my food daily so I will be able to tell without any guessing if my eating habits have changed.