You Are What You Eat is a nutrient analysis program which allows the user to examine their diet for a selected meal, snack or

SOFTWARE DESCRIPTION

You Are What You Eat is a nutrient analysis program which allows the user to examine their diet for a selected meal, day or up to one month. First the user individualizes the program by striking the About Me key. This is a subject teens always find fascinating – themselves!! Information requested is that which a body mass index would be based on, sex, height, and weight, then activity level. The user may generalize indicating a sedentary, moderate or high activity level or they may analyze their activities by choosing as many as are applicable to the period of time they are doing a food recall for.

The student enters the Foods I Ate for the selected time period. The program then compares the selection to the Daily Recommend Intakes simply by requesting Analyze, the third of the four buttons at the top. The best part of this feature is that the student can immediately receive a report on the strength and weaknesses in their diet and information on how to have a more nutritionally balanced diet. The analysis information can be seen in a variety of screens allowing for more or less information in different formats as described in the following. This is especially helpful for visual learners.

For example, first a table gives a summary of all the nutrient totals as well as total calories. Then a graph indicates this and other nutrients and presents them as nutrient totals compared to the percent met of the RDI’s. A confusing bit was that the graph doesn’t include as many nutrients as the table. The program claims to analyze 26 nutrients compared to earlier editions that had only 13.

Next, a pie chart appears indicating the distribution of the protein, fat and carbohydrates consumed. Another pie chart breaks down the types of fat consumed including Poly, Mono and Unsaturated. This is not usually something teens think about! The junk foods teens crave have little nutritional value. These selections are not the healthiest choices according to a survey published in the Nutrition Research Newsletter, titled: “Children and adolescents don’t follow the food pyramid”. The results indicated that American adolescents are “not meeting current recommendations for intakes from most food groups and are exceeding recommended levels of fat and added sugar intake”.[i]

Finally, the most impressive feature of the Analyze section is an Analysis Critique of nutrients that were low compared to the dietary standards. The critique tells how the nutrient benefits the body and what foods it is found in. The reader may print any of the information to help improve their eating patterns.

ACCURACY OF CONTENT

Of course, this information is only as accurate as the student’s food recall, which should be indicative of a typical eating pattern if it is to be used to adjust eating patterns. This is the hitch. The food database is extensive but can be confusing. For example, a request for strawberries brings up every kind of product with strawberries in it, except for fresh strawberries. Eventually, strawberries were located under fruit, strawberries. Then the student has several decisions to make. Were the strawberries fresh or frozen? With or without sugar? Sliced or halved? Finally, the amount consumed must be estimated after finding the correct selection. Serving sizes is not something most people want to admit to or find easy to do!

Another difficulty in supplying accurate content within the food database is specifying the ingredients used to prepare recipes. For instance, macaroni and cheese may seem straightforward, but then there are several brands or homemade to choose from. The student may not notice that the selection could be for a dry mix. They then would have to include the rest of the ingredients used to prepare the recipe. The process does require some determination but the user is rewarded with a nutrient breakdown of the selected food if they request it.

Yet, in comparing this food recall list to other similar programs, You Are What You Eat is much more user friendly. The food database is extensive but not overwhelming. It includes fast foods and name brand cereals, soft drinks, snacks and candies. All the junk kids love!

TECHNICAL QUALITIES

The other technical qualities of this software are also student friendly. For example, one just has to click at the buttons on the top numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, in order to navigate through the main features. Help is only a click on ? away. The company describes the user interface as a “web-like” format that is familiar to internet-savvy students. However, these same students are accustomed to music and moving graphics of which You Are What You Eat has none except at the opening of the program.

The use of this technology is a terrific time saver as well! If one were to keep a diet log, look up the calories and nutrient qualities of each morsel and calculate the energy expenditure based on activity level, this would be quite time consuming. You Are What You Eat allows the student the tools to take action and prioritize their diet and activities now that they have obtained more information. The student may also compare the healthfulness of one period of consumption to another as they become more knowledgeable about nutrition.

Another motivation for the student may be to recognize a pattern of diet deficiency and research the long term affects on their health. A flaw of the software program is that it does not seem to address excesses in the diet and the health ramifications of that. Although the software is 2002 sixth edition, it appears outdated in not considering the overeating habit of Americans.

USE OF TECHNOLOGY

The students can construct and print a food label on this program. In order to assess the healthfulness of foods, adolescents must be able to read a food label with understanding. You Are What You Eat is somewhat of a useful medium for this as it allows for the input of the ingredients. The user then indicates the number of servings in the recipe. A food label as well as an analysis can then be requested. The instructor could then promote learning by asking the student to identify the nutrient totals of the foods from reading the label they’ve just created. This method would be useful for a chef who is creating a recipe. Otherwise, students may benefit more from more ‘hands on’ approach to reading actual food labels.

ROLE OF THE TEACHER AND STUDENT

The teacher using this software in a computer room setting needs to be familiar with the program in order to avoid students becoming frustrated with not finding foods for their diet entry. Prior planning is necessary as the students must recall specifically what they ate and how much. Requiring a food journal to be brought to the computer lab would be most beneficial. The teacher should not allow students to individualize their (exercise) activities when using the software for the first time in a large group setting as this would be too time consuming. Everyone should just indicate if they are sedentary, moderately or highly active. However, for the computer savvy student who finishes quickly, this would be a useful tool for enrichment. Learning Center students should probably be provided with a list of foods eaten a meal that the teacher knows would not be difficult to find. A drawback of You Are What You Eat is that the teacher has no management tools in using this software with students. The software advertisement on the Nutrition Company website stated that a reference manual/teacher guide was included. However, this was short booklet with quite limited information referring only to installation and basic information.

CLASSROOM USAGE

An individual doing a diet analysis ideally uses You Are What You Eat. Paired or group work may be utilized in constructing a food label from a recipe that a kitchen lab for example has created. This software would compliment the curriculum in a Health, Foods or Nutrition course at the grade eight through high school level. The price for a site license was very reasonable, only $240.00. This makes it affordable for even being used a by a few class sections for one or two periods a year.

CRITICAL SUMMARY AND RATING EXPLANATION

Overall, this software rates a nine out of ten. The information made available to the student using You Are What You Eat for diet analysis is exactly the kind that is needed to promote health awareness and a balanced approach to nutrition. It is not difficult to learn or use but does require some patience in finding accurate food entries in the database. The instructor can be sure that higher ordered thinking is taking place by requiring an action plan to be presented after the student analyzes their data.

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