Make It Short: A Pilot Study on an Adaptive Nutrition Tracking App.

Over the years, obesity has been rising. This does not only lead to a higher prevalence of non-communicable diseases that affect the health of an individual, but also high costs for society. Although existing research in the field of mobile health suggests that mobile nutrition tracking applications can be considered a well-accepted and low-cost intervention, current nutrition apps are struggling in multiple areas like time-intense food tracking, incorrect reporting by users, and neglect of aspects such as in variety. For this reason, this study has iteratively developed a mobile app that allows users to decide for themselves how precisely, and therefore, how time-consuming, they want to track their diets. In a final study, it was evaluated how the new tracking method was used, perceived, and accepted by users. Good ratings were observed for usability as well as a large majority of food records accompanied with extensive details.