wHealthy Solutions Interview at mHealth Summit #mHS12 – FoodSmart app

As someone who never tracked what I’ve eaten in my life (until recently with my FitBit), I’m just learning the value of this (more on another post). To that point, I was very interested in seeing several applications at the mHealth Summit last week in DC. While there are lots of different pros and cons, I sat down with Michael Segal from wHealthy Solutions (Wealth + Healthy) to talk about their FoodSmart app.

I found their application different and interesting based on the following:

1. You can scan in your food.
2. It tracks your food and provides recommendations (see example below).
3. The algorithm for recommendations changes based on your chronic disease.

FoodSmart’s new Custom Ranking feature gives people in special health populations a way to search the database by typing in a specific chronic condition. Users can search on the following categories to view custom rankings of food and beverages specific to these health concerns: Prediabetes, diabetes (type 1 and 2), weight management, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Service functionality includes warnings about unhealthy ingredients; recommendations for healthier alternatives; user community taste rankings and reviews; personalized product lists; and the ability to create and share shopping lists with family members and other users.

This is an interesting opportunity here since they’ve been growing primarily through viral growth. I talked a bit with Michael about trying to get incorporated into other applications and being used by nurses and others. I think that would drive adoption along with getting this to be something that dieticians would “prescribe” to their patients.

I will admit that it was fascinating to see how the recommendations change based on your disease. It plays well into what I think is important which is gradual change. For example, if I always eat cereal for breakfast, you might not change my habit, but you might get me to pick a better cereal.