Dennis Sellers for Apple World Today:
With its Health app, the HealthKit developer app,and Apple Watch features. Apple has focused a lot of its attention on the health and wellness field in recent months. Now the tech giant has filed for a patent (number 20190261669) for “methods and compositions to improve weight loss and cardiometabolic health beyond diet and exercise.”
It’s for a weight loss system that guides users in how to eat healthy and match their caloric intake to their physical activity. The system would, I assume, expand the features of the Health app on the iPhone and Apple Watch. Or Apple may have a completely new app in mind.
MacDailyNews Take: The number one problem, at least in the U.S., is portion control. Too many people eat way more than they need; way more calories than they expend. If Apple could somehow help people to reset their idea of proper portions, that would go a long way towards curtailing the obesity epidemic.
That’s a pretty myopic take, MacDailyNews. The obesity problem in this country is much more complex than that and is a result of many factors that have nothing to do with lack of control over portion size. However, the super-size me culture certainly plays a part in this epidemic. Anything that tech can do to help people increase awareness is a good thing!
There may indeed be complex reasons why certain people eat too much food for their current activity level, but it still is true that obesity is a function of too many calories consumed for current activity level. That part is just physics.
I’m curious what they might address beyond diet and exercise, as diet and exercise are the only topics mentioned.
“number one problem … portion control”? …. what’s in the portion can matter as much as calorie-counting portion size (aka portion control).
So although, yes, “too many people eat way more than they need” .. quality (which foods) vs quantity (how much) are interrelated. e.g. it’s likely easier & quicker to eat a pound of fries than a pound of kale. … yet, the per pound calorie (and nutrition content) is vastly different.
NutritionFacts.org looks at what research papers say about healthy weight loss: https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/weight-loss/
You can overeat on healthy food as easily as you can on unhealthy food. MDN’s original statement is still correct.
Intake, output and also people are weak and don’t have the fortitude to stick it out. Result don’t happen overnight. You can do it if you really set your mind and have the discipline. Most people don’t.
I personally hope they integrate a food logging app and capability, and an iScale. I count calories, ut have never found an ideal scale solution, especially for mobile. I’ve got 3 or 4 food scales, good Oxo one for the kitchen, but there are no good bluetooth scales. The one I have is portable and small, but when you put something on it, you can’t see the readout — and the readout is hard to read, etc. I’m just itching to get a scale that is portable — no bigger than an iphone — and just bluetooth enabled. Put your food on there, select what it is from a searchable list (and user-community extendable) — and log it. Done.
I’d be happy to just get the weight and use MyNetDiary or MyFitness pal or equivalent but if apple where to integrate that into the ‘iScale’ product and enable it with the full force of the Apple community, it could end up with a massive, accurate, and easy to use solution for managing food intake.
While I’m on that point — in Canada, all restaurants must list calories for each item (I believe this is the case, don’t flame me if it’s not). In the US, this is starting to be true of all large businesses but not small restaurants. I know that there is push-back from the restaurant “community” cause there is some cost involved, but personally think that’s a bunk excuse, and the cost could be minimized.. I would like to see all restaurants required to make this information available, then, have Apple integrate that into their “iWatchMyWeight” app — I could trademark that, but Apple can have it for free — a portable iScale with bluetooth right into your app. Now, going out is easy, tracking what you eat is easy, and then it just comes down to the will power to not order that huge mudpie desert after your 1500 calorie “healthy” meal.