MyFitnessPal Diet & Nutrition App

Procurement/Cost

Free for download on the iOS Apple Store and Google Play Store

Evidence Base

• The aim of this study was to assess how individuals in naturalistic settings performed when recording their dietary intake in MyFitnessPal, and their usability experiences with the app. Adults, who did not regularly use MyFitnessPal (N = 43), logged their dietary intake in the app for four consecutive days and completed two researcher-administered 24-hour recalls collected based on the Automated Multiple Pass Method. Individuals omitted a mean of 18% (SD, 15) of food items, particularly energy-dense and nutrient-poor foods from MyFitnessPal records. Relative to two-day, 24-hour recalls, 4-day MyFitnessPal records significantly underestimated mean energy intake by 1,863 kJ (SD, 2,952 kJ, P = 0.0002) and intake of all macronutrients. 
• Although 80% of participants rated MyFitnessPal as easy to use, only 20% said they would continue to use, citing challenges in matching foods, estimating portion size, and logging being time-consuming, as affecting motivation for long-term use. Large discrepancies in nutrient measurements from MyFitnessPal indicate suboptimal performance, with using the app to record intake, particularly given food omissions in records and difficulties encountered with app usability, relating to the food database and input of portion sizes.  

• Standalone use of MyFitnessPal is therefore cautioned and guidance from dieticians is necessary to support use of nutrition apps in collecting accurate, dietary data.

  Chen J, Berkman W, Bardough M, Ng CYK, Allman-Farinelli M. The Use of a Food Logging App in the Naturalistic Setting fails to provide accurate measurements of Nutrients and poses Usability Challenges. Nutrition. 2019 Jan; 57:208-216.

• Thirty university students, including males and females, volunteered and recorded dietary intakes on paper-based, food records and MyFitnessPal food records. MyFitnessPal tended to underestimate ingestion of nutrients probably due to inadequacies in their database. However, MyFitnessPal showed good relative validity, especially for energy and fiber. Its use, like similar applications, should be encouraged due to ease of assessing dietary information. However, careful usage is recommended because of database gaps. 

  Teixeira V, Voci SM, Mendes-Netto RS, da Silva DG. The Relative Validity of a Food Record using the smartphone application, MyFitnessPal. Nutr Diet. 2018 Apr; 75(2):219-225.

• After carefully given instructions, fifty participants used MyFitnessPal to each complete a four-day, dietary record, 2 times (T1 and T2), with one month in between T1 and T2. Nutrient intake values were calculated either manually, using the food composition database Nubel, or automatically, using the database coupled to MyFitnessPal. 
• Cleaned MyFitnessPal values demonstrated strong correlations with Nubel for energy intake (r = 0.96), carbohydrates (r = 0.90), fat (r = 0.90), protein (r = 0.90), fiber (r = 0.80), and sugar (r = 0.79). However, there were weak correlations for cholesterol (p = 0.51) and sodium (p = 0.53); all P values were less than or equal to 0.001. About a 5-10% power loss should be taken into account when correlating energy intake and macronutrients obtained with MyFitnessPal to an outcome variable, compared to Nubel (food composition database).

• Overall, dietary analysis with MyFitnessPal is accurate and efficient for total energy intake, macronutrients, sugar, and fiber but not for cholesterol and sodium

  Evenepoel C, Clevers E. Deroover L, Van Loo W, Matthys C, Verbeke K. Accuracy of Nutrient Calculations Using the Consumer-Focused Online App My FitnessPal: Validation Study. J Med Internet Res. 2020 Oct 21;22(10):e18237.