The American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) has upgraded its Goal Tracker app to allow users to more actively manage their nutrition. Now, users have the ability to monitor their diet as it relates to their diabetes, help them create realistic nutrition goals, track what they eat and share diabetes-friendly recipes.
“The new nutrition tracking feature of Goal Tracker is a great tool to help people achieve their weight goals, count their carbs, and to make smart choices to benefit heart and overall health” said Dawn Sherr, MS, RD, CDE, Associate Director of Education Content Development.
The enhanced functionality of the Healthy Eating component of the app is designed to help people with diabetes understand what they are eating and how it affects their diabetes:
- Nutrition can be tracked including calories, carbohydrates, total fat and sodium; key nutrients people with diabetes should know and understand.
- Food can be logged as breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks
- Diet can be monitored over time by day, week or month
- Clickable icons provide more information on types of calories, carbs, fat and sodium
- Meals can be created with assistance from the app to make monitoring easier
Recipe building
- Users create diabetes-friendly recipes that show nutrition, recommended serving size and instructions
- Recipes can be shared to the goal tracker community
AADE successfully launched Diabetes Goal Tracker in August 2013. The iPhone and Android app, available in English and Spanish, helps people with diabetes set, track and achieve goals based on seven proven areas of behavior change known as the AADE7 Self-Care Behaviors™. These include Healthy Eating, Being Active, Monitoring Blood Sugar, Taking Medication, Problem Solving, Reducing the Risk of Complications and Healthy Coping. For each element of the AADE7, people with diabetes can set their goals, enter their progress and track their successes.
The app leverages social learning which allows users to see what works for others, apply those lessons to their own lives, and ultimately, learn from each other.
Diabetes is one of the top public health threats in the U.S. today, impacting more than 29 million individuals with the disease and 86 million who have prediabetes. A diagnosis can be challenging, often requiring a lifestyle change that includes blood glucose monitoring and diet management.
Diabetes self-management education teaches people how to self-manage their condition and is a proven way to lessen the complications that are often associated with diabetes, including circulation and vision problems, kidney failure, even heart disease and stroke.
The app was developed by the American Association of Diabetes Educators, with initial support from Boehringer Ingelheim, Lilly, Genentech, and Novo Nordisk; and more recently, support from Tate & Lyle to build this new nutrition enhancement.