A selection of survey participant comments
Legend:
Grey = overall agreement with app planning
Coral = agreement with showing calorie comparison
Blue = agreement with showing fat/sugar imagery
Red = extra ideas
Green = disagreement with app planning
- I usually don’t think at all before grabbing a snack so if this app tells me what I’m actually doing to myself, it most probably will work for me!
- Knowing how much exercise would be needed to burn a snack would definitely make me stop and consider before ruining all the hard work from the gym etc! Also I think showing how many cups/cubes of sugar is in a snack if very off putting!
- I’m not fat personally I respond better to positive reinforcement rather than negative.
- Show in a pie chart and give me an alternative, encouraging good behaviour like “you could have 10 bags of raisins and still be under your RDA” together with “that’s 45 mins on the treadmill to burn off”. Better yet, put it in the context of a previous workout: “One Mars bar = all of last Thursday cardio!”. If it’s tangible in effort I’ll probably rethink.
- I wouldn’t know or care what fat or sugar looks like in a body. Organs etc. look grim even when healthy.
- If you are making a conscious effort to diet seeing the pictures and facts may put you off long enough to see off that craving. I find positive images work better for me eg. How I could look if choosing healthier snack or doing that bit extra exercise… To look fantastic at all times, also to maintain health, fitness and not to buy new clothes as the old ones are too tight.
- Showing the negative effects of eating something unhealthy would make me not want to eat it.
- Perhaps having alternative images next to it of a healthy snack and the positive effects of eating it would help!? Seeing something with your own eyes is more effective than just reading ’20g’ fat. If I could physically see the 20g of fat and know how long it would take me to burn off I would be much less likely to eat the snack.
- I am currently using an app called ‘My Fitness pal’ and it is easy to not use it (or to cheat with it.. but if the app being used caught you by surprise with images I think this would make me think twice.)
- I just need to be reminded what I’m eating – translating calories, which is essentially just a number, into a more easily understood quantity that people can associate with (e.g. quantity of exercise) will help people to really understand the concept of food as a fuel, and how much their body needs to run. The image of fat and sugar in the product would help to better visualise what food is made up of. Both are great educational tools. I’m not sure if I would respond as well to images of fat in the body, unless it’s your own, as it would be more abstract and less tangible in relation to yourself.
- Often it’s a learnt action to go to the fridge / cupboard etc, if you actually thought of the damage said snack was doing it would perhaps make you think.
- Makes you think twice about eating rubbishy snacks! It would be effective, although I’m not sure if the pictures would make me want to use it, I think a lot of snacks are quite deceiving about how healthy they are. Also if a person isn’t familiar with portions/weight of ingredients then comparing or using an image equivalent can actually be quite shocking and effective.
- Better information could help you to remain motivated to achieve your goals. I have used three weight loss apps. None of them offer suggestions of fat content on snacks, just the calorie content. If I saw how much fat was in a snack the visual image would stick with me.
- For health pictures of fat people, my insides or how many calories I’d need to burn wouldn’t motivate me. I’d prefer to be told how much sugar or fat is in something and whether that’s a high amount or not. Also, perhaps the app could suggest ‘realistic’ alternatives. So you’re craving some coco pops for breakfast but instead you could have porridge with banana and a bit of honey or crumpets, It sounds a little better than ‘have a bowl of fruit’!
- I would prefer the app to tell me alternative snacks to the chosen one.
- Easily persuaded by images. Would also like to see an alternative healthy snack I could have instead. Because I’m sure that if people were fully aware of what they are eating they may think again.