Smartphone apps help address under-consumption of veg
CANBERRA: Despite evidence that eating vegetables can reduce the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer, it is estimated that more than 19 million Australians aren’t meeting their minimum dietary guideline recommendation.
Launched last year, and commissioned by Hort Innovation, CSIRO’s VegEze app uses game-like features to encourage Australian adults to eat more veggies through a 21 day ‘Do 3 at Dinner’ challenge.
More than 4000 people have taken part in the study and of those who have completed the challenge, over 80 per cent are having three vegetables with dinner. CSIRO scientist Dr Gilly Hendrie said the findings of the research showed that adopting a gamified approach, such as the VegEze app, was an effective way of helping improve Australia’s poor vegetable score-card.
“The app has helped tip the scales the most for obese people, with obese men consuming one extra serve and two extra types of vegetables per day, which is a significant increase,” Dr Hendrie said.
“By the end of the challenge, the percentage of obese men that were meeting the Australian Dietary Guidelines vegetable recommendations had increased four times to 30 per cent.
“Men in general increased their vegetable intake by three quarters of a serve. “This resulted in 10 per cent increase of number of men meeting the guidelines, but interestingly we only saw an increase of 1.4 per cent for women.”
A report published by CSIRO last year highlighted that women generally eat more vegetables than men, which may account for the smaller increase.
“It’s an encouraging sign of the times to see how technology can drive healthy eating habits, especially for those groups that need it the most, like men and obese adults,” Dr Hendrie said.
“As Australia’s national science agency, we are focused on delivering solutions that are helping Australians live longer, healthier lives.
“We encourage people to take up the 21-day challenge which is free to download from the app store.”