Can a mobile application help adopt intuitive eating practices?

Keenoa can be used with clients who want to adopt intuitive eating. This is because Keenoa is not simply a food tracking application. Keenoa offers dietitians insight into not only what their client is eating, but documents their feelings before and after eating.

Counselling in intuitive eating requires curiosity and the application of a non-judgemental approach when exploring the client’s eating habits. The goal of intuitive eating is to improve the client's physical and mental well-being by making changes in their eating behaviours. Stabilization of weight, weight-loss or weight gain are all possible scenarios in this context.

The primary goal in intuitive eating is to make positive changes in the client's relationship with food (e.g., reducing guilt).

Keenoa can be used to explore this relationship initially and then observe its evolution over time.

Keenoa features for clients who want to adopt intuitive eating:

Photos of meals

Keenoa allows the client to document what they eat by taking photos of their meals without specifying exact quantities. By using photos without accompanying nutritional information, Keenoa takes the focus off numbers, such as grams of fat or number of calories. The option to add nutritional information can always be changed by the dietitian in the client’s mobile application settings.

Intuitive eating questions

Dietitians can activate automatic intuitive eating questions which prompt clients before and after each meal.

Questions before meals:

Questions after meals:

Comments on meals

In the "comments" section that accompanies each photo, dietitians may ask their client to document some additional factors that could affect their food decisions. These may include the clients:

• Thoughts about what he or she is consuming (e.g., judgments)
• Emotions about what he or she is consuming (e.g., shame)
• Location (e.g. eating at the table, couch)
• Surroundings (e.g. eating alone or with family/friends

These comments are extremely helpful and may guide the dietitian’s intervention at the next visit. In fact, the comment section may vary from week to week. For example, a client might begin noting only hunger signals for a week and then move on to documenting emotions.

Use of detailed nutrient intake details

Eventually, the client may express a healthy desire to improve the quality of their diet, not to restrict themselves, but to improve their health. In this case, the dietitian can activate key nutrients which are consistent with the client’s nutritional goals. To ensure that this step does not feed new obsessions, only the dietitian will have access to the entire nutrient analysis.

Example: Progression of a client who uses Keenoa for intuitive eating

Food Diary Entry #1

Food Diary Entry #2

Food Diary Entry #3

Food Diary Entry #4

Nutrition Intervention Guided by Keenoa

With Keenoa, all the information provided by the client is accessible to the dietitian. Dietitians have access to different ways to visualize this information, such as through the compare mode demonstrating below. Here, dietitians can begin to unravel patterns in their client’s eating patterns to help guide their interventions.

Possible Interventions by the Dietitian

1. Explore the role that hunger,stress and energy-levels play in triggering binge eating.
2. Discuss strategies to develop awareness during a moment of compulsive eating and how to remove guilt afterwards
3. Discuss the benefits of dietary flexibility to allow clients to enjoy meals with friends/family in social settings.

Results after the intervention

By using Keenoa, dietitians are able to dig deeper to find the root cause of barriers limiting their client’s success. Once the client begins to adopt intuitive eating habits with the guidance of their dietitian, the client’s success and progression of their relationship with food will also be documented with the application!