Let Go of My iPad: Testing the Effectiveness of New Media Technologies to Measure Children’s Food Intake and Health Behaviors

This field experiment with more than 100 children at a school in the Southeast examined children’s use of an iPad app as a means of improving the measurement of their food consumption. External factors related to children’s food preferences and food consumption were also examined to determine how the iPad app could be further developed to help them become more aware of the foods they ate and how they could become more proactive in their health and well-being. Results indicated that the app enabled children to have more precision in recording the foods that they ate, and children expressed great appeal for the app. The foods that children reported eating via the app were compared to attitudes toward eating and nutritional knowledge; in both cases, more positive attitudes toward eating and stronger nutritional knowledge meant that a child was more likely to report eating healthy foods. Findings from this exploratory study contribute to knowledge in several areas because the findings represent the first of its kind in the discipline.