Health Behavior Theory in Popular Calorie Counting Apps: A Content Analysis

Although the Health & Fitness category of the Apple App Store features hundreds of calorie counting apps, the extent to which popular calorie counting apps include health behavior theory is unknown. This study evaluates the presence of health behavior theory in calorie counting apps. Data for th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:JMIR mHealth and uHealth 2016-03, Vol.4 (1), p.e19-e19
Main Authors: Davis, Siena F, Ellsworth, Marisa A, Payne, Hannah E, Hall, Shelby M, West, Joshua H, Nordhagen, Amber L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Calories
Confidence
Content analysis
Diet
Goal setting
Graduate students
Health behavior
Short Paper
Social networks
Social research
Social support
Telemedicine
User behavior
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Summary:Although the Health & Fitness category of the Apple App Store features hundreds of calorie counting apps, the extent to which popular calorie counting apps include health behavior theory is unknown. This study evaluates the presence of health behavior theory in calorie counting apps. Data for this study came from an extensive content analysis of the 10 most popular calorie counting apps in the Health & Fitness category of the Apple App Store. Each app was given a theory score to reflect the extent to which health behavior theory was integrated into the app. The highest possible score was 60. Out of the 10 apps evaluated, My Diet Coach obtained the highest theory score of 15. MapMyFitness and Yumget received the lowest scores of 0. The average theory score among the apps was 5.6. Most of the calorie counting apps in the sample contained minimal health behavior theory.
ISSN:2291-5222
2291-5222
DOI:10.2196/mhealth.4177