Texting to manage daily diet. Case study and web developer considerations included.

It would incredibly convenient and empowering to be able to log consumption and get a dietary brief indicating percentages of recommendations per day (and “progress” percentage).

The study cited indicates the benefits by way of a case study which provided young teenagers with the ability to easily manage and log their diet throughout the day.

Also linked are Ribbit and Textmarks, both services which allow developers to provide interactive voice and SMS messaging systems. The former is far more customizable and is preferable for larger scale operations, I believe.

University of North Carolina School of medicine (2008, November 12). Text Messaging May Help Children Fight Off Obesity. ScienceDaily.
Ribbit Developer Platform
Textmarks

Interesting stuff. Are you interested in having your progress being sent out via text, or the ability to log your progress via text?

Being able to manage my food intake and workouts on the fly via text/sms and/or Twitter would put Gyminee above any other wellness tracking web app around. I

It would make using the service THAT much more functional and value added. I’ve tried www.tweetwhatyoueat.com but its too basic.

Please, please add text/sms and/or Twitter functionality (inbound to Gyminee).

It’s definitely something we’re considering. We’re not sure how to maintain Gyminee’s robust tracking capabilities over something simple like SMS though. Thoughts?

This is a great idea.

I would suggest a couple approaches to this… Both would be the best.

1. Allow folks to text “Burrito” to Gyminee and have it put it on the nutritional info for the day. If it finds Burrito in your favorites, it can add the nutritional info… if not, it is a place holder for when you get back to your PC and can get it right.

2. Allow someone to text with the proper syntax and add it with nutritional info you provide. i.e. “Burrito c300 f25 p5”

In any case, having the ability to flag these as coming in via text so a person could review easily and change easily would be cool.

I agree with heavyeddie on this one. I’ve been thinking it would be nice to be able to quickly put foods into my nutrition log when I’m out. Then when I get home update the actual stats for those items.

It seems like even if people don’t directly track the calories as gyminee allows. Giving people more options just to track all foods will allow them to look things over when they get a chance.

I’ve also thought it would be nice to be able to email or text a photo of what you are eating. That way you wouldn’t even need to type anything. Then later come in and match that photo to the food you have eaten.