So my daughter is supposed to track her food and exercise for medical reasons. She sees her specialist ever 6 months and is supposed to turn in a log. It’s a real pain to write it all down and even then, it would take an inordinate amount of time to track all the nutritional details so we generally don’t (even though we should). Frankly, our logging sucks.

So I decided to look into using a tracking app. I tried out a few and found one that had all the features she’d need including tracking the specific nutrients relevant to her condition and an export option. It also would work with her Fitbit to track her activity and can have manual exercise input too. So I went to set up an account for her.

But, evidently that app says it’s only for over 18. They said it’s not geared for kids and kids should seek the advice of a pediatrician and nutritionist (done and done). And then I ran across a discussion about it on their forums basically saying that kids shouldn’t “be so obsessed” with what they’re eating and tracking calories. Also, that parents that encourage tracking are setting their child up to have food and weight anxiety. While I understand the app can be used for weight loss, obviously it has other uses. Should they limit it to only over 18? Do you think having a child track food and exercise (with parental help) is unhealthy?

(As I side note, we did find another app we are going to try and all it did was ask that a parent or doctor be involved, which seems appropriate.)