Mind
Tracking without obsession
Measuring what you eat helps some people a great deal and harms others, and which group you are in is not decided by how sensible you are. We have an obvious interest in the first answer, which is exactly why this page exists.
What most people believe
Tracking is just information. More data about what I eat can only help me make better decisions.
What the evidence actually says
What it is genuinely good at
Finding out what you actually eat, which almost nobody knows. Estimates of intake from memory are wrong by large margins in both directions, and the errors are not random — they cluster around exactly the things people are least keen to look at.
It is also good at answering a specific question. Where is my protein short. Am I anywhere near enough iron. What is actually in the lunch I eat four times a week. Those have answers, the answers are useful, and once you have them you do not need to ask again.
That is the shape of tracking at its best: a short investigation with a beginning and an end. A fortnight of measuring to find out where the gaps are is worth far more than a year of logging out of habit.
How it turns
A measurement becomes a target, and a target becomes a rule. That progression is not inevitable and it is common, and it usually happens without any moment where someone decides to let it.
The signals are recognisable. Eating around the app rather than using it — choosing the food that logs neatly over the food that fits the meal. Anxiety about eating something that cannot be measured, which quietly rules out other people’s cooking and most restaurants. A number at the end of the day that sets the tone of the evening. The urge to compensate after seeing a total.
And the one that matters most: logging something and then eating differently because of what the screen said, rather than because of hunger, fullness or plan.
Who should probably not do this
Anyone with a history of an eating disorder. This is not a cautious hedge — dietary self-monitoring is associated with worse outcomes in this group, and clinical guidance generally advises against it outside supervised treatment.
Anyone for whom the numbers have previously become the point. If a past attempt ended with tracking taking over, the app is not different this time.
And adolescents, where the risk-benefit is poor and the developmental timing is bad. We build for adults for that reason.
What we would rather you did
Track for two weeks, with a question in mind. Answer it. Stop. Come back if the question changes or the diet does.
Use it to look up individual foods without logging anything at all — most of the value in this app is in the panel for a food rather than in the diary, and that use has none of the risk described above.
And if any of the signals in this page describe you, close it. That advice costs us a user, and it is still the correct advice. An app that could only be defended by not saying this would not be worth building.
What to actually do
Give it a question and an end date
Two weeks to find out where the gaps are beats a year of logging from habit, and it is where nearly all the value sits.
Watch for eating around the app
Choosing food because it logs neatly rather than because it fits the meal is the earliest reliable sign that the tool has become the goal.
Use the lookup without the diary
Most of what is useful here is the nutrient panel for a food. That carries none of the risk that daily logging does.
If you have a history, do not start
Self-monitoring is associated with worse outcomes where there is a history of an eating disorder. That is guidance, not caution.
Sources
- Dietary self-monitoring and outcomes — a systematic review
- Orthorexia nervosa and health-tracking technology — a review
- NICE guideline NG69 — eating disorders: recognition and treatment
If this describes you rather than interests you
This page describes a mechanism. It cannot tell you whether you have a problem, and it is not treatment. Eating disorders have the highest mortality of any psychiatric illness and they respond well to treatment — which are both reasons to speak to someone early rather than late. A GP is a reasonable first door and will have had the conversation before.