Doha: The Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q) has launched a mobile phone application that uses a system similar to traffic lights to warn users against the consumption of high-calorie food.
‘Your Health First: Calorie Counter’ will allow its users to count the number of calories they consume each day, drawing on a vast database of common food items, including Arabic food. Based on the kind of food item logged in the system, a user will get red light for a meal of burger and fries and a green light for choosing salad or a dessert of fruit.
The application is part of WCMC-Q’s Sahtak Awalan: Your Health First campaign, which was developed and powered by Vodafone Qatar in conjunction with the college.
Opting for too many unhealthy foods will cause the app to suggest healthy alternatives for the next meal. Even when eating within the recommended daily calorie intake, it will also notify a person whether they aren’t getting enough of a specific five-a-day.
Khalifa Saleh Al Haroon, head of the Interactive & Innovation Department at Vodafone Qatar, led the team who developed the application. He said that a key design element was to make the app as user-friendly as possible.
It is available on Android and iOS devices in English and Arabic.
“Because a good diet is important to people of all age groups it was important that the app should be fun and easy to use,” said Haroon.
“Based on what you tell it that you’re eating, it has some smart features that visually show you the proportion of healthy food compared to the junk food you’ve eaten, how much you’ll potentially weigh if you keep eating in a certain way, and it’ll even advise you what you need to eat more of. If you’re getting the right amount of calories but not enough fruit and vegetables, it’ll tell you,” he said.
A unique feature of the app is a completely new database of typical Arabic foods, such as thureed or machboos, which until now have never featured in popular dietary databases. Anyone who downloads the app will be able to use their phone to suggest other Arabic foods to add to the database, meaning the app will become more comprehensive over time.
“With this new application WCMC-Q is embracing opportunities offered by mobile phone technologies to deliver our message about healthy lifestyles to an ever larger audience,” Dr Javaid Sheikh, Dean of WCMC-Q, said.
Another useful feature of the app is that each user’s progress will be stored on a remote server so they can easily switch or upgrade phones without losing their data.
“Users can calculate their optimum calorie intake by just sharing a few details and their personal goal. Users will be able to track their progress and even rely on it to tell them whether their choice of food is healthy or not,” John Saad, Chief Marketing Officer at Vodafone Qatar, said.
The Peninsula
