A mobile game FoodT has been claimed to help people who desperately want to lose weight but fail due to their strong cravings for junk food.
Developed by researchers at the University of Exeter, England, and the University of Helsinki, Finland, it’s now available on Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store.
As per a study published in Appetite’s October issue, the app uses brain training techniques to reduce people’s cravings for junk food.
Using the app at least once a day, which takes about four minutes, reduced junk food consumption by at least one point on an eight-point scale in the trial run. This ranged from eating four to five junk food items a day to one or zero junk food items per month.
“As an example, someone who ate each junk food two to four times a week reduced this to once a week after using the app regularly for a month,” quotes Natalia Lawrence, an associate professor in translational medicine in a news release by the University of Exeter.
How does it work?
Users are shown everyday objects in red or green circles in the food trainer game. Once a user taps on an object in the green circle, it awards them a point but tapping on an object in the red circle gets a point deducted.
Between the images of objects such as pencils and sweaters, the app slips in healthy and unhealthy food items deliberately. To train the brain further, the healthy food items always appear in green circles, whereas the unhealthy food items always come in red circles. Using the conditioning or reward mechanism, the app tries to train the user’s brain to respond positively to healthy foods and negatively to junk foods. Also, it keeps asking questions once in a while to assess the user’s progress.
User reviews on Play Store confirmed that their cravings were reduced after using the app.