OH Man––Another Diet App! When is it Going to End!?

Hola amigos! Welcome back!

Another diet app.  Diet culture is sneaky! While this app says it’s not a diet, there are so many red flags to show it is another diet app! Instead of spending weeks and money towards this app, tune in to learn why you can just ignore it.

Highlights of this episode:

• How to Identify a Diet
• App’s Approach is a Diet
• Diet Research is Skewed
• What to Do Instead of Dieting

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Episode Description: 

[04:02] Another Diet App 

This app’s name rhymes with the last word in “fruit of the loom.” What does this app actually do? What’s its history? What’s the research say? It claims to be not a diet, is that true?

If you have not already, listen to Episode 111 – seven warning signs of diets and Episode 75 – with my guest, Dr. Wanda’s story about her diet to intuitive eating journey. This triage goes together really well!  This episode’s research on the diet app was done by Denvyr Tyler-Palmer. She is a graduate student at Nova Southeastern University and a dietetic intern. So, thank you and a big shout out to her.

What’s a Diet? 

It’s a diet if it’s unsustainable, if it’s not evidence-based, or if that research is skewed, offers unrealistic promises, an all or nothing approach, preaching extremes, requiring supplements, being endorsed by celebrities, doctors, or maybe even engineers, and increased desires. So, is this “loom” app meet the definition?

[09:08] Not a Diet, But Really, It’s A Diet App  

Is the app really not a diet? It claims to “stop dieting. Get lifelong results…keep the weight off for good.” This is an empty promise. The two engineers that creating this app, do not know the complications of weight loss. The app’s algorithms will have human bias towards calories and weight.

The algorithm is really focused on providing the “right” calorie level. It essentially uses an energy needs calculator based on your anthropometric data.  The calculator uses equations, which are not new. Equations such as Harris Benedict, the Mifflin St. George, Ireton-Jones, are all used by the World Health Organization to create dietary recommendations. You can actually search for them online. So, there’s really no secret behind it when you think about it. So, it is not as exciting or new.

[12:38] What the Diet App Really Does

There are three main parts: daily tracking, daily lessons for education, and accountability from a coach. Sounds great, but there are problems within each part.

Daily Tracking Method is Dieting

Daily tracking is how the app expects you to limit your calorie level. That is standard for all dieting weight loss programs. The problem here is that the body may not respond the same way for everyone. The body works to regulate your thermostatic balance, your thermodynamic balance, and your energy utilization. You can try to manipulate it, but the body does not like to be manipulated.

The diet app uses a traffic light system of green, yellow, and red for foods. Quite honestly, this is very much like Weight Watchers’ points system (or WW), but in reality, this is very limiting. It’s very restricting and othering. It makes you feel bad because if you don’t follow the green foods, then you’ve done bad. That’s hard to maintain because in life we just don’t eat this way. When you try to make a plate like this, we can fall into the perfectionistic mentality.

Have you ever tried logging your foods every single day? What a pain! It becomes either very repetitive, or it just becomes very mundane, or just too difficult. You’ve got a lot going on. So, it’s very, very challenging. It’s not that easy.

Education Lessons Rooted in Implicit Bias 

Lessons are broken down into four phases: identifying bad habits, weight loss psychology, cultivating willpower, and pep talk to avoid quitting.

Within the identifying the bad habits phase, which lasts 4 weeks, it includes topics like discovering your “why” or motivation, creating a roadmap, developing keystone habits, and how to beat that inner food demon. These lessons are loaded with the attitude that your health is a moral dilemma, a key feature of healthism.

The second phase, weeks five through eight, you’re essentially learning the psychology behind weight loss and replacing actions. Topics like diets, debunking weight loss myths, and overcoming food triggers. That’s ironic from a diet app. Those are all very difficult. It puts the blame back on the individual. That’s a problem because we can’t blame the person for being in the body that they’re in, but the person gets body shaming through these lessons. It’s not on purpose, but comes from implicit bias. It suggests the body is something to beat. Our body is just trying to perform its natural functioning. This is another example of how implicit bias is built into our tech.

The third phase is all about keeping or replacing, with an emphasis on willpower. Here’s something that David has learned over the years, working with many clients. The more you try to have willpower over food, generally the better you will feel about avoiding candy, desserts, carbohydrates, certain fats, lean meats, whatever, whatever you’re trying to avoid, you’ll feel great. Until you stop feeling great. And when you stop feeling great, guess what goes down?

Your willpower and why does willpower go down when it comes to food? Because again, you cannot fight physiology. Physiology is physiology. If you are hungry, your body’s going to do whatever it can to get. It’s a seesaw effect. You feel guilty for eating that food. And so then, you double down again. This is a seesaw of feeling bad, feeling great, feeling bad. And at the same time, you’re playing and messing with your metabolism. And it really messes with your body’s way of dealing with your weight.

And then lastly, phase four, weeks 13 through 16, focuses on pep talk to avoid quitting and not beating yourself up, which implies that you might be giving up at this point.

[21:50] The App is a Diet

In research focused on diets, programs are done in facilities that have trained professionals, doctors, dieticians, and therapists. And even then, you don’t see results beyond two years. This new app does not have the research to back up its claims. It has the red flags of a diet: unsustainable, unrealistic promises, and increased desires.

[23:19] The Diet App’s Coaches

This coach can have a bachelor’s degree or an associates degree. But, it doesn’t have to be in healthcare as long as they have a passion for health and wellness, whatever that means. They do go through some kind of training, but we don’t know really what it is. They do offer a connection with a wellness and coaching program, but it’s not required. So, what’s the benefit there?

Their responsibilities include to send you weekly messages with personalized feedback. We’re not exactly sure what that personalized feedback is based on. Is it just the food log or is it something else? Also, your coach is responsible for 100 users at a time. David works with 20 clients a week maximum, so how personalized can it be?

This proprietary software use therapy approaches, like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Now, CBT is great. It’s used in David’s practice and it’s very helpful. Through CBT, you develop a stronger understanding of your behaviors and your motivators, and then you also do some problems solving skills to get you through difficult situations and you learn to develop greater efficacy. But the problem is, that it is not what the coaches actually do.

[25:52] The Diet App Cost

When you sign up, there’s a two-week trial. You pay anything you want, but they start you at $1. Then after that, it goes up. For one month, it’s $59 and package rates following. The average user is usually only on about three months. And remember everything is driven by the customer, which is a lot of work.

[26:55] The Diet App’s Research

The advertisement claims that 77.9% report weigh loss.  However, less than a quarter of the participants were able to sustain their weight loss for 76 weeks and a comparable number of users experience an increase in weight greater than baseline.

If the user discontinues using the app, they are assumed to have regained weight, suggesting that this app is only a temporary weight loss solution. Not to mention that 99% of users don’t stick to the app for more than six months. And here’s the thing. Despite the app having over a million users, there is only 35,925 qualifiers for the study. That means their total user base data isn’t reported. So technically, it may not be 77.9%.

The success rate depends on the frequency input of users’ diet, weight, and exercise, which is contradictory to “stop dieting, get long-term results” marketing slogan.

[32:49] The Diet App Experience

In their research, the experimental group of 45 participants, they were given CBT therapy by a licensed therapists using the platform. They provided daily feedback and assignments for eight weeks. The control group just use the app. The results were obvious. The CPT group or the experimental group had a significantly greater weight loss. Well, of course, but not after 24 weeks. So, weight loss continued to occur, but not at a such significant degree.

However, the results are comparing nothing. Also, the digital CBT was really not validated by any group or any organization. Hiring coaches that don’t have a license in therapy makes sense because it’s super expensive. It wouldn’t be $59 a month. It would be more like $199 a month, at minimum.

It’s a Diet without Evidence

The evaluating conclusion is that this app is not providing long-term results and is not evidence-based. When you hear people say “research shows,” that may mean there is a study, which sounds great, but nobody really questions it. Studies are very convoluted because a lot of the research is written in a way that only researchers know how to understand it.

So, 95% of diets actually fail. They might work at first, but they do not last. If you’re going to use CBT, use it for something that is meaningful. Like feeling secure in your relationship with food and creating a more positive relationship to food so that you’re not fighting your instincts, developing a way of understanding what it is that your body is saying with interoceptive awareness, using your body to guide you. That does take work. And it is hard.

[41:24] Non-Diet Nutrition Care

In Orozco Nutrition, we focus on letting the client guide the direction that’s going to be beneficial for them. And that allows the person to be able to then adapt to a way of eating that is beneficial for them. It’s sort of like a holistic individualized approach, but it doesn’t lead into restriction, avoidance, and fears of food. What it does is invite more curiosity and experimentation. That learning and growth allows people have more energy and people feel better. That is what’s really, really important.

Resources Mentioned this Episode:

• Diet App’s published study on weight loss from app
• Diet App’s published study on CBT in weight loss

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Chop the diet mentality; Fuel Your Body; and Nourish Your Soul!