WMG, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK.
School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Int J Eat Disord. 2020 Mar;53(3):404-411. doi: 10.1002/eat.23205. Epub 2019 Nov 25.
Using calorie-counting and fitness-tracking technologies is concerning in relation to eating disorders. While studies in this area typically assess one aspect of use (e.g., frequency), engagement with a device or application is more complex. Consequently, important relationships between the use of these technologies and the eating disorder symptomatology might remain undetected. The current study therefore used comments from online eating disorder-related forums to generate comprehensive qualitative insights into engagement with a popular calorie-counting and fitness-tracking application, MyFitnessPal.
First, we extracted every comment mentioning MyFitnessPal made on three eating disorder-related forums between May 2015 and January 2018 (1,695 comments from 920 commenters). Then, we conducted an inductive thematic analysis using these comments to identify important aspects of engagement with MyFitnessPal.
The analyses resulted in three themes: Preventing misuse, describing ways in which MyFitnessPal attempts to prevent pathological use and actions taken by users to circumvent its interventions; Accuracy, outlining distrust of MyFitnessPal's accuracy and ways in which perceived inaccuracy is reduced or compensated for; and Psychosocial factors, comprising cognitive, behavioral, and social factors that influence, or are influenced by, engagement with MyFitnessPal.
The qualitative insights provide a detailed overview of how people with high levels of eating disorder symptomatology likely engage with MyFitnessPal. The insights can be used as a basis to develop valid, quantitative assessment of pathological patterns of engagement with calorie-counting and fitness-tracking technologies. The findings can also provide clinicians with insight into how their patients likely engage with, and are affected by, these devices and applications.
使用卡路里计数和健身追踪技术与饮食失调有关。虽然该领域的研究通常评估使用的一个方面（例如，频率），但与设备或应用程序的参与更为复杂。因此，这些技术的使用与饮食失调症状之间的重要关系可能未被发现。因此，本研究使用来自在线饮食失调相关论坛的评论，生成了对流行的卡路里计数和健身追踪应用程序 MyFitnessPal 的参与的全面定性见解。
首先，我们从 2015 年 5 月至 2018 年 1 月期间在三个饮食失调相关论坛上提取了每一条提到 MyFitnessPal 的评论（920 位评论者的 1695 条评论）。然后，我们使用这些评论进行了归纳主题分析，以确定与 MyFitnessPal 参与的重要方面。
分析产生了三个主题：防止滥用，描述了 MyFitnessPal 试图防止病理性使用的方式以及用户采取的规避其干预的措施；准确性，概述了对 MyFitnessPal 准确性的不信任以及如何降低或补偿感知到的不准确；和心理社会因素，包括影响或受与 MyFitnessPal 参与的认知、行为和社会因素影响。
定性见解详细概述了高水平饮食失调症状的人可能如何参与 MyFitnessPal。这些见解可以用作开发对卡路里计数和健身追踪技术病理性参与进行有效、定量评估的基础。研究结果还可以为临床医生提供有关其患者如何参与以及受这些设备和应用程序影响的见解。
