MyFitnessPal and a Fitness Industry Based around Profits, not Fitness.

The fitness industry is incredibly complicated and frustrating. These companies stand to benefit when we are stuck, addicted to their products or services to achieve “health”; yet, our health is not something that should be left up to capitalism and data/innovation. The human body and what makes it strong/healthy can’t fit into a small screen or be calculated from a series of data points and by doing so we are harming millions of people around the world. We are allowing “health” startups to sell products that make something that is truly fragile and natural into a complicated, tedious, unenjoyable game. A game that often leaves people worse off than before with yoyo dieting, negative relationships with food, toxic workout habits, and eating disorders on a large scale. All for what? So a few white men in Silicon Valley can take advantage of a society of confused people.

The fitness industry giants, like MyFitnessPal, undoubtedly help their “ideal” population, but due to a lack of science and regulation in the space, they are also disproportionately harming people’s heaths and enabling people with eating disorders in their illness.

MyFitnessPal is a prime example of a fitness company that was started with good intentions, to create a universal platform to track calories and exercise for weight loss but has grown quickly and without regulation allowing it to harm many people. MyFitnessPal is a fitness app that recommends a calorie and nutrition program based on the user’s weight loss/health goals. The app then allows users to track the calories and nutritional values of their food, by either scanning a barcode or searching an extensive database, to ensure they are working towards their goals (1). Overall MyFitnessPal is a database of over 14 million foods, with more than 200 million members in over 120 countries, and with this reach, it has raised multiple ethical concerns (2).

Many studies tie MyFitnessPal to enabling and even causing eating disorders.

Before diving into the ethical concerns I want to acknowledge that MyFitnessPal does have the ability, if used correctly and with proper support, to help some people. There is evidence that for obese or overweight people “tracking food intake and activity is strongly correlated with achieving weight-loss goals” (9). Similarly, the app provides a vast array of functions and ease of use that makes it popular “in elite sports” (1). However, in both of these situations, the person using the app is likely or should still be surrounded by nutrition professionals, due to the inaccuracies of calories, and difficulty in accurately tracking. The FDA allows “numbers on nutrition labels to be off by as much as 20 percent” (12). Additionally, the app does not contain calorie counts for every food you may eat, so then you are left to weigh or estimate the calories for yourself. Firstly, estimating calories is nearly impossible for the average person with people underestimating calories in their food by 200 calories on average (11). Secondly, while measuring and weighing every food you eat can help measure portions and calories more accurately (13), it is not practical for most people. However, if you are a professional athlete whose job is to maintain a certain fitness level and who is surrounded by trained professionals and the tools necessary to track your calories accurately MyFitnessPal can be a helpful tool in that process. So, MyFitnessPal does provide some users with the data and structure that is needed to meet health-related target behaviors (3), but they are advertising to and used by a far larger population than just those who benefit.

In addition to these two populations, MyFitnessPal can help their “ideal” user, an average person with no pasts or risks of eating disorders. This ideal user responds well to the persuasive techniques of conditioning and social commitment to keep to their food tracking goals. The app has features that allow you to share your progress with friends and family, on a social media-like section of the app. It also has the ability to link to other social fitness-related products and apps (like Fitbit) to deepen this social engagement (1), helping those motivated by social pressure. Similarly, the app uses persuasive conditioning tools by rewarding users with trophies and badges for reaching certain health-related goals (3). Again, these features of the app make it effective for some (their “ideal” user) yet are at the core of how MyFitnessPal is harming so many others.

Diet culture and calorie tracking have been proven to be less effective/healthy for weight loss for many people.

This app was built by one man for himself, it was not designed for the entire population. The co-founder of MyFitnessPal originally designed the product to help him and his wife track their calories and lose weight before their wedding (5). Since it was designed for him and his wife originally they were the “end users” at the time but on a global scale, the entire population of end-users was not included in the design process. It was built for healthy and overweight populations (6), which worked at the time for their customer base of two. But now, with millions of users, this design is long out of date. The design of this product is not adequately informed by the experiences, interests, and needs of its users, and is especially harmful to users who struggle with body image problems and eating disorders whose experiences are not built into/accounted for in the features (7). This is the root of most of MyFitnessPal’s ethical problems. They are using idealized “personas” in their design, leading to a major un-named subjects problem. The un-named subjects problem means that they are treating their technology as if it operates the same way for all people (13) when in reality it only really works for ‘ideal’ individuals who have a functional relationship with food. Their un-named subjects are a large population of vulnerable users who have a dysfunctional relationship with food and who are not benefiting at all from the design of this product (7).

This narrow vision of their user has led MyFitnessPal to have an ethically troubling impact on many people. To start it leads some people to develop less healthy eating patterns around obsession, cutting entire food groups out, or seeing foods for solely their calories and neglecting the nutritional value of what we eat. Weighing out every food you eat is incredibly tedious and makes eating out, and living life, way more difficult. This difficulty and obsessive behavior, weighing your food or using calorie or fitness trackers, is proven to “contribute to unhealthy eating habits in some people” (11). Calorie tracking apps also lead many people to cut entire high-calorie food groups, like fats or carbs, out of their diets, which can be catastrophic to their long-term health. Different foods affect your metabolism, hormone levels, hunger, and appetite differently (11). Cutting entire food groups out can also lead to a false sense of weight loss. For example, if you cut all carbs out of your diet you will likely see a quick drop in weight on the scale, but this is not fat loss it is just water. When you cut carbs out of your diet you are reducing your body’s carb stores which are usually “stored together with water in your cells” (11). Not only does an obsession with calories lead many to cut entire important food groups from their diet but it can actually lead people to eat less healthy. If all you do is focus on calories, then 100 calories of spinach would count the same as 100 calories of cookies in your diet, but not all calories are the same and a “low-calorie diet is not necessarily a healthy one” (12). Not directly, but through their focus on calorie counting, MyFitnessPal is ultimately leading many people to unhealthy diets. Losing weight is not worth it if your body doesn’t have the nutrients it needs to run smoothly and strongly for a long time. So, even if you are under your calorie limit with an all Twinky diet you are not healthy, I can promise you that!

Now, we can take it a step further and see where MyFitnessPal is really in ethical trouble. As I covered earlier this app is built for a very specific “ideal” user and that user is someone who has a healthy relationship with food or who is working with professionals on a weight loss or fitness journey. So, what happens when people with less healthy relationships with food find this social and reward-fueled technology that causes obsession in the average person? An undeniable connection between this app and eating disorders. Multiple studies have shown that MyFitnessPal is used in the eating disorder population (75% of individuals diagnosed with an eating disorder in one study) and is perceived as contributing to or causing their eating disorder (73% of the individuals in the study) (2). Another study found that the community component, which can be a helpful social commitment for some “ideal” users, is especially “triggering for people suffering from an eating disorder (ED), as these are competitive illnesses” (3). Despite these alarming statistics, MyFitnessPal remains the same with no specific information, warnings, or screenings in place for people with eating disorders (3). How can the evidence be so clear that this app is harming a large population of people and yet it is not taking these users into account and redesigning their application with them in mind?

MyFitnessPal’s Simple Start Challenge from December 27, 2021.

Despite there not being any obvious changes implemented to help people with and those vulnerable to developing eating disorders, there have been some recent steps in the right direction. But these steps are small, short-term, and only for those who can afford them. So don’t get too excited! MyFitnessPal still only cares about you for the month of January or if you can afford it. One of these steps was MyFitnessPal’s Simple Start Challenge. They announced this challenge on December 27, 2021, that was aimed at empowering wellness education and the development of healthy habits through a two-week program. The challenge included “daily nutrition and wellness tips, education, tracking reminders, prizes and incentives for users, and community motivation” (5). It also included insights and support from a registered dietician and personal trainer. The features of this program solve so many of the faults I found in the app earlier, but it only lasted two weeks. Similarly, the premium version includes features that can help the app run more efficiently for a larger population. The paid version of the app “provides access to dietician-created recipes and tips via a customizable nutrient dashboard” (9). It also removes ads that offer in-app purchases of “fitness” products that are likely triggering for at-risk users. But again these solutions are not available for everyone. The app still remains a tool filled with countless triggers for users with eating disorders, and those who can’t afford the premium version. These are both good starts but MyFitnessPal needs to take them both a step further. The challenge should be longer and happen more often and the app should offer a way for people to apply for a discounted or free version of premium if they can’t afford it (like many mental health apps do).

We are not machines, robots, or games and the fuel and exercise we need to thrive can not be calculated as small data points as if we were. Big data and technology have taken hold of nearly every part of our daily lives, yet I think we need to draw a stronger line around our bodies and health and stop allowing them to be used as more pawns for capital growth. The “market sees Big Data as pure opportunity” ignoring all potential side effects of capitalizing on certain aspects of human life (4). We (and our bodies) deserve better than this.

Fitness is not just some other industry to make money off of, people’s healths need protection from the markets and capitalism as a whole. Big Data and the technology it can fuel has its “own inbuilt limitations and restrictions” (8). Or at least it should. A fitness company should not be able to say that their “Our whole business is marketing — everyone is in marketing” (11) while they have the ability to impact people’s physical and mental health on such a large scale. Health is very complicated and a company like this needs to be run by scientists and fitness professionals and not by a data-focused marketing team. Fitness companies like MyFitnessPal should also work to incorporate as many features to account for weight variables like (BMR, genetics, and microbiomes) as possible to personalize them or at least have in-app warnings about inaccuracies in calories. People base so much of their days and lives around these little trackers and numbers that are often inaccurate to start with but that also doesn’t take into account who that person is as an individual. Peoples’ abilities to lose weight are affected by their current weight, genetic factors, and gut microbiome, in addition to far more complex features (12). Our bodies’ weight-regulation mechanisms are so complex that “there’s still much that scientists don’t understand” (12). And yet we allow businessmen to affect millions of people’s lives with a product that extremely oversimplifies these complexities?

We need more regulation and science in the fitness technology space. This is one of the spaces with increased automation of data collection and analysis drawing massive conclusions about humans and “it is necessary to ask which systems are driving these practices and which are regulating them” (4). There have been calls for “additional research and advocacy” (3) surrounding calorie tracking applications and eating disorder populations but I think regulation is necessary to protect most users. We are not data points and can’t be treated as them, regulation is necessary so scientists and experts can tell companies what is best for us as humans. The fitness industry can’t just be an industry, it can’t just be built around data, and it can’t be solely focused on profits, because our health is more important than a few white men in Silicone Valley becoming millionaires.

Sources:

1. Evans, Daniel. “Myfitnesspal.” British Journal of Sports Medicine, BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and British Association of Sport and Exercise Medicine, 1 July 2017, https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/51/14/1101.full.
2. MyFitnessPal. “Myfitnesspal Launches Simple Start Challenge to Inspire Healthy Habits This New Year.” MyFitnessPal Launches Simple Start Challenge to Inspire Healthy Habits This New Year, 27 Dec. 2021, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/myfitnesspal-launches-simple-start-challenge-to-inspire-healthy-habits-this-new-year-301450831.html.
3. Jacobs, Naomi. “Two Ethical Concerns about the Use of Persuasive Technology for Vulnerable People.” Wiley Online Library, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 15 Oct. 2019, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bioe.12683.
4. danah boyd & Kate Crawford (2012) CRITICAL QUESTIONS FOR BIG DATA, Information, Communication & Society, 15:5, 662–679, DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2012.678878
5. Olson, Parmy. “Under Armour Buys Health-Tracking App Myfitnesspal for $475 Million.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 4 Feb. 2015, https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2015/02/04/myfitnesspal-acquisition-under-armour/?sh=293b29366935.
6. MyFitnessPal. “Myfitnesspal Launches Simple Start Challenge to Inspire Healthy Habits This New Year.” MyFitnessPal Launches Simple Start Challenge to Inspire Healthy Habits This New Year, 27 Dec. 2021, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/myfitnesspal-launches-simple-start-challenge-to-inspire-healthy-habits-this-new-year-301450831.html.
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8. Higgins, 2016 J.P. Higgins Smartphone applications for patients’ health and fitness The American Journal of Medicine, 129 (1) (2016), pp. 11–19
9. “EyeMD and My Fitness Pal.” Define_me, https://www.npjournal.org/article/S1555-4155(16)30354-3/fulltext.
10. About The Author Sanjay Dholakia Sanjay Dholakia is responsible for extending Marketo’s product leadership, and Sanjay Dholakia Sanjay Dholakia is responsible for extending Marketo’s product leadership. “A New Definition for Marketing: Lessons from Myfitnesspal.” MarTech, 13 May 2021, https://martech.org/new-definition-marketing-lessons-myfitnesspal/.
11. Davis, Robert J., et al. “Is Counting Calories Good for Weight Loss?” Time, Time, 24 Sept. 2021, https://time.com/6101041/counting-calories-weight-loss-supersized-lies/.
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13. Norman, Donald A. The Design of Everyday Things. MIT Press, 2013.