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It has been pretty widely observed that those with disordered eating tendencies are far more likely to be tracking their nutritional intake than those without. This may lead some to believe that the act of monitoring / tracking itself is to blame. However, there are also countless people who meticulously log their food in notebooks or digital apps for weeks, months, and even years on end that never experience a single disordered symptom.
So, what gives? Is tracking helpful or harmful?
As always, the broad answer is going to be:
“It depends”
Let's look at the research
A research group recently took a look at this directly and hypothesized that “women assigned to use an app for self-monitoring dietary intake would report an increase in eating disorder risk relative to women assigned to the control condition” and that “dietary self-monitoring would lead to poorer mental health outcomes given the impacts of self-weighing on mental health among this population.”
Introducing Dietary Self-Monitoring to Undergraduate Women via a Calorie Counting App Has No Effect on Mental Health or Health Behaviors: Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial. Hahn et al. (2021)
The researchers in this study recruited 200 female undergraduate students, a population that has a high prevalence for eating disorders and disordered eating behaviors, and randomly placed 100 of them in an intervention group and the other 100 in a control group. All participants were screened to ensure no one included had a diagnosed eating disorder or any “preexisting conditions” that impacted how much or the type of foods they eat. They also could not have tracked their nutritional in take within the last year.
The intervention group was given access to MyFitnessPal, shown their estimated TDEE (total daily energy expenditure), and was told to log everything they ate or drank for a month.
The control group was not instructed to change anything.
At both the beginning and end of the month eating disorder risks and behaviors, depressive symptoms, state anxiety, body image, overall quality of life, and nutrition + physical activity behaviors of all participants were assessed via multiple questionnaires and surveys.
The findings pretty clearly show that there was essentially no difference in eating disorder behaviors, self-monitoring habits, or mental health outcomes between groups at the end of the month. In fact, the only statistically significant between group difference was “self-weighing frequency” (self-reported on one of the questionnaires) which went down in the tracking group and up in the control group.
In summary, both the group that tracked and group that did not scored evenly when assessing for risk of disordered behaviors.
So… What does this mean?
While this does provide some insight suggesting that “calorie monitoring” isn’t inherently bad, that certainly does not mean it’s right for everyone. I think it can be very triggering for those who already have disordered risks and behaviors present. If anxiety, body image, and quality of life are directly tied to food consumption, in some capacity, tracking calories is likely to exacerbate associated struggles and thus it should probably be avoided.
However, if no pre existing connections exists, it can be a very powerful tool that doesn’t seem to “directly” cause any issues! If you haven’t yet done so, you can read about some of the benefits of tracking that I discussed in my last email by clicking the link below.
What You Can Learn From Tracking Your Calories - Click Here
In Conclusion
I, and all the other LVLTN coaches, understand that every individual is different. It cannot simply be said that tracking is good or that it is bad.
I think the “degree to which you track” also makes a big difference as well. And therefore, we have some clients that track proteins, fats, and carbs, some that just track total calories, some that track just protein, and some that don’t track or log anything but rather take a more behavioral monitoring approach.
We do our best to preach balance, flexibility, and above all, consistency. Not restriction.
If tracking helps you achieve those things; amazing!
If not tracking gets you to the same end goal; equally amazing!
Always remember that it’s simply a tool.
It’s a vessel by which we can control our actions and behaviors.
That control is the key; IT is what matters.
Need help optimizing your protocols to reach your health and fitness goals? Let us help by putting an expert in your corner to help you get there faster and maintain that progress for life! Learn more about our online health coaching by clicking here!
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