Dalhousie researchers launch kid-friendly healthy eating app

A team of researchers from the Healthy Populations Institute at Dalhousie University launched a new app aimed at getting kids to eat more fruits and vegetables.

The “Froogie” app is designed to help families track their daily intake based on Canada’s Food Guide.

“We’ve been doing research around how to create supportive environments to prevent chronic disease, things like diabetes, heart disease,” said lead researcher Dr. Sara Kirk.

“We were working with some families and they were telling us how hard it was to eat healthy when we have such busy lifestyles.”

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READ MORE: Eat 10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day to live longer, new study says

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The app gives busy families a way to keep track of exactly how many fruits and vegetables their family is eating on a daily basis. It’s designed to be simple enough so that children of all ages can use it, while at the same time making it a fun and engaging experience.

“I think it was about making it a fun interface so that people of all ages could have fun with it,” said Ashwin Cutty, president and CEO of We.Us.Them, the company behind the design of the app.

“But at the same time there are also reminders of different types of healthy eating habits as well, so that also meets the needs of parents and adults.”

READ MORE: How you eat is all wrong. Follow these new 5 recommendations instead

Funding for the project was provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada

“The Froogie app is so closely aligned with our commitments to children and youth and ensuring that kids have the best start for a healthy life that it just made so much sense for us to be here today to help promote this,” said Jennifer English, director of government relations and health promotion with the Heart and Stroke Foundation in Nova Scotia.

The Froogie app can be downloaded for free through Google Play or iTunes.