Скачать или смотреть Risks of Calorie Counting & Fitness Tracking: Disordered Eating and Compulsive Exercise (2025 Study)

This video examines the potentially harmful associations between using diet and fitness applications (apps), including specific monitoring tools like MyFitnessPal (Curry, 2025), and negative outcomes such as disordered eating symptomology, body dissatisfaction, and compulsive exercise.

Drawing on research focused on young women (17–35 years), a 2025 study (Anderberg et al.) highlighted that users of diet monitoring apps alone, or those using both diet and fitness monitoring apps, reported significantly higher scores on measures of disordered eating, body dissatisfaction, and compulsive exercise compared to non-users or those who only used fitness monitoring apps. Even the use of fitness monitoring apps in isolation was linked to increased compulsive exercise.

Key insights from the research include:

• Diet monitoring app users often track for reasons like calorie or macronutrient tracking and weight-related goals, while fitness monitoring app users prioritize general fitness tracking and data like step count and energy expenditure.

• The relationship between app usage and disordered eating is moderated by fit-ideal internalisation. Users who more strongly internalize the ‘fit’ appearance ideal reported greater disordered eating symptoms.

• Exercising for appearance-focused reasons was found to exacerbate disordered eating symptomology in both diet and fitness monitoring app users.

• Some participants who ceased using the apps reported the experience of negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, such as becoming "obsessed" with monitoring calorie intake or restriction.

• Longer duration of diet monitoring app use was related to increased body image concerns.

Understanding these risks is crucial for individuals who engage in self-monitoring and for professionals who recommend these mHealth tools.