Running head: A health assessment highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of a mobile health

app.

An assessment on the mobile health app MyFitnessPal.

What app I chose, what it does, how it works, my experience, how easy was it to use, strengths
and weaknesses, and who I would recommend too.
Junueen Torres
California State University Channel Islands
May 13, 2022

Author’s Note
This health assessment assignment was prepared for HLTH-302-Health Care Informatics,
taught by professor Berkowsky. The writer of this paper wishes to highlight that paper is based
on opinions and personal experiences.
 Macronutrients, also known as macros, are composed of three essential nutrients: protein,

carbohydrates, and fats. The body needs these nutrients to function properly and provide energy.

Counting macros can help people reach different goals, because of this, macros can be different

for every individual (Avita, 2022) The recommended American diet calorie intake is 2,000

calories a day. To calculate a person’s macros, they have to count carbohydrates which contain

4kcal per gram, protein contains 4kcal per gram and fats are counted as 9kcal per gram. An easy

way to keep track of this is by downloading an app, for example, MyFitnessPal.

This is an app essentially to keep track of food intake in order to reach personal goals

whether it be counting macros, losing weight, gaining weight, or even being at maintenance. This

app is supposed to encourage and help people stay consistent in their diet by allowing them to

log in their meals daily. This is an example of a standalone personal health record, in module 13

we see that a standalone PHR is an application or website where people can input their own data.

This app is like Facebook and Twitter, you post daily but it doesn’t have to be public. This app

gives the option to add friends, make a group chat, and make your account private, public, or

only visible to friends. This app allows one to set personal goals and work on those goals daily.

For example, it gives the option to input your weight and your goal weight, your calorie intake

goal, minerals and vitamins goals, water intake, and even physical activity for the day. To

encourage consistency, there is even an option to set alarms as a reminder to fill in the food log.

Since people have different objectives, it even has options to change the number of meals that

you consume daily out of the traditional 3 times a day. This app allows one to create their own

recipes and meals for faster logging. As mentioned previously, this app has the option to keep

this personal information private, following the roles of HIM professionals which include

keeping information accurate, secure, trustworthy, and standardized. Not to mention, this health
application incorporates the standard of interoperability. As we learned in module 9,

interoperability is defined as two or more systems that exchange information and are allowed to

use it (Berkowsky, 2022). Interoperability is something that is seen in this app. It allows for

people to connect this app to other health apps on their phones and it keeps the progress of that

too. It can also connect to other devices such as the activity app on the apple watch, the Fitbit,

etc. Not only is it interoperable with devices but it also has accurate nutrition facts from a variety

of foods and restaurants. Another thing that is important to add is that this app also allows its

users to engage in other people’s workout plans, healthy eating plans, and even meditation. It has

options to choose from, where people upload videos or their meals or workouts and make it a 2-

week challenge for other people to join.

After analyzing this app for 2 weeks, I can speak on my experience and say that it was

manageable and very easy to use. I like to lift weights and I made it a goal of mine to start eating

more in order to gain muscle and gain weight. This was the perfect app for me as it helped me

track my macros and make sure I reached my calorie intake goal. I made it a tiny habit to log in

my food while I was making it so that I was accurate with measurements and did not leave any

ingredients out. First, I created a profile and made sure I made it private. Then I started adding in

information such as my age and weight. After I had set it up, I used a macro calculator from a

website and added my macros and my calorie goal into the app. I didn’t set reminders because I

wanted to see how my instinct would react every day and see if I would remember or not. It was

easy for me to remember since it is a goal that I am applying to my life, although the hard part

was eating more. Sometimes I was in a rush and forgot to track my meals for breakfast and I had

to do it later in the day with what I remembered; it was not always accurate. I was usually eating

similar meals every day, so it was easy to log in. When I was cooking different meals, on the
weekends typically, it took me longer to log in because of all the ingredients. Every day in the

morning, I would make breakfast and have my phone with the MyFitnessPal app opened. I

would then go to my diary and press the add food button. When I was on the next page, that’s

where I had the option to either scan a bar code, scan the meal, or search for the food. I never

really used “scan the meal”, which scans the meal, and it automatically gave all the nutrition

information because that is only accessible to people who have premium. After inputting my

food, I was able to adjust the service size, and the number of servings, and see the macros and

calories that the ingredient contained as well as the nutrition facts label. Next, I just press add

and the food was added. My calorie intake goal, calories consumed, and remaining that were

displayed at the top of the page changed according to what I had input. I did this for all three

meals, and I was also able to track my water intake, snacks I had throughout the day and even

my exercise and daily steps were tracked. My steps and some exercises were tracked because I

also used other apps such as the activity app on my iwatch and the stepsapp and found that they

were interoperable to the MyFitnessPal app, and it kept track of it all in one place. I noticed that

the app also keeps a streak record of how many days I was participating in and adding to my log.

It was easy to see what mealtimes I consumed more calories in, it also showed me how many

grams of macronutrients I was at and how many more I needed to reach my goal. After staying

consistent for 2 weeks and aiming for my protein, carb, and fat goal as well as my overall calorie

intake goal, I noticed a slight increase in my weight. Overall, the app was very easy to use, easy

to connect with other apps, easy to understand, and easy to keep track of. My biggest challenge

at times was simply to meet my daily goals.

All in all, this app has a lot of strengths and good qualities. I liked that it had options to

scan the bar code on the food item and log itself in or search up the food and log it in like that. I
preferred the scanner as it was less time-consuming. I also noticed that the app had an option to

reuse the same meal from previous days and mealtimes which I also found to be very effective

and saved me a lot of time. I liked that the StepsApp that I normally use to keep the progress of

my daily steps was added to MyFitnessPal and that it tracked my progress. As I mentioned, this

small personal health record recorded in other apps follows interoperability because the same

information is used and tracked in a different app allowing for information to be more accurate. I

liked that it also added and decreased the number of calories I needed depending on my physical

activity intensity for that day. The intensity of my workout that I usually track on my apple

watch was tracked in this app as well which I really liked. I liked that the nutrition facts for the

foods I logged in were very accurate. I liked all the options the app had as far as profile,

reminder alarms, plans, and meals offered. I think that this app follows the general ethical

principles that we see in module 5. I also thought it was great that the app was easily accessible

and free to use. These are examples of how this app follows the ethical principle of access. I

liked the idea of adding progress pictures for people who use this as a daily activity for a certain

goal. Being able to save these pictures is an example of the principle of security, information

privacy, and disposition because it allows for these pictures to be private to only the person

saving them.

On the other hand, there were some qualities of this app that I didn’t really like. A

weakness I thought was discouraging was that to get access to some of the other services, there

was a premium fee. There were also some Mexican food products that I would use for my meals

and were not included in the app’s nutrition facts list. I also didn’t like that it doesn’t give you

the progress of your weight unless you weigh yourself frequently and manually enter your

progress in. Because of this, I think that this app was missing one of the EHR core
functionalities, result management. After all, this app is basically a personal EHR because a

person is inserting personal data and inputting other information that stays recorded. Another

thing that discouraged me was that I was not able to track my workout routine. The process was

confusing, and I couldn’t keep track of my workouts because it doesn’t give me the option to

type them in. The only thing I found difficult to use in this app was that, adding my daily

exercise. It was very time-consuming, and it gives options of exercises to choose from, but it

doesn’t give the option to type in your own workout routine. I think that this lacks the advantage

that EHRs are supposed to have according to the lecture in module 7 which is creating data for

analysis. If one cannot input their workout routine, how is one going to keep track and have this

data available?

Even though there were some flaws, I think that this was a very good app. As a person

that enjoys going to the gym and working out, I realize it is essential to eat food. I think that this

app is a really good fit for me because I really liked how it helped me keep track of my macros

and the food I ate. It also encouraged me to meet my goals, eat more, and not just binge on food

or snack on other unhealthy foods that will sabotage my results. I am not accustomed to eating

more than 1,500 calories a day and I realize that this might not be healthy for me. Over the past 2

weeks, this app has helped me learn to eat more and aim for 2,000 calories daily. Not only has it

helped me see how and what I am consuming daily but, I also learned new and healthier meals

that I can add to my diet instead of eating the same thing daily. Overall, I really learned a lot

from this assignment as it helped me understand the importance of a well-balanced diet. I would

continue using this app for my personal goals and my gym goals. The only thing I would make

adjustments to was the issue about the workout logging and make it an all-free app by removing

the premium fee.

 I would recommend this app to everyone. I think this is a good app for everyone whose

goal is to have a healthier lifestyle. I think this would be a very helpful app for people who are

trying to lose weight. I think that if they set realistic goals and if they stay consistent using this

app, they can really reach their goals. I would also recommend this app to people who have a

sedentary lifestyle and are trying to be a bit more active. This app has perfect beginner plans with

low-intensity workouts and dances to get the heart beating. It has short videos on activities

people can engage in, small weekly challenges to get started, and really good and healthy food

recipes. I am aware that not a lot of people eat and cook healthy meals and I think this app is a

great starting point. I would also recommend this app to people who have trouble eating healthy.

Finally, I would recommend this app to people like me who have trouble eating and gaining

weight because this app honestly helps stay on track of the food you eat and seeing your daily

calorie goal encourages and motivates you to reach that goal and eat more.
 References

Berkowsky. (2022, April 29). Consumer Health Informatics. Retrieved May 13, 2022, from
https://cilearn.csuci.edu/courses/19747/pages/m13-%7C-lecture?module_item_id=1043496

Berkowsky. (2022, April 1). Health Information Exchange. Retrieved May 13, 2022, from
https://cilearn.csuci.edu/courses/19747/pages/m9-%7C-lecture?module_item_id=1043474

Berkowsky. (2022, February 25). Ethics in Health Informatics. Retrieved May 13, 2022, from
https://cilearn.csuci.edu/courses/19747/pages/m5-%7C-lecture?module_item_id=1043454

Berkowsky. (2022, March 11). Introduction to Electronic Health Records. Retrieved May 13,
2022, from https://cilearn.csuci.edu/courses/19747/pages/m7-%7C-
lecture?module_item_id=1043465

Macronutrients: A simple guide to macros. Avita Health System. (2021, May 27). Retrieved May
13, 2022, from https://avitahealth.org/health-library/macronutrients-a-simple-guide-to-
macros/