Eating your feelings at home: Nutrition tracking experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic

Nowadays, using apps to track one’s health, productivity or progress is a common practice for millennials. This study examines the usage of nutrition-tracking apps in the unforeseen circumstances brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, which started in March 2020. The pandemic forced most Western countries to impose various levels of lockdown measures, and profoundly altered how individuals worked, socialized and managed their health. In effect, the restrictions limited and disturbed many citizens’ health routines, such as working out in gyms, participating in team sports and, in particular, how they consumed food. This thesis explores the user experience of nutrition-tracking mobile apps during the 2020-2021 coronavirus pandemic among millennials in the Netherlands. By adopting inductive thematic analysis on 10 semi-structured interviews, the author identifies several negative experiences when using such apps in the global pandemic, including the difficulties of adherence, lack of motivation, elevated levels of distress, anxiety, guilt and frustration as a result of nutrition tracking. Therefore, using the app during the pandemic did not prove to be useful as an independent method to maintain a healthy lifestyle and doesn’t show its users’ expected results as quickly. These negative experiences demonstrate the limitations of Quantified Self and contrast with the expectations of this modern movement. This thesis examines the usage of technology by a subset of the population in a time of crisis and critiques some of the assumptions of the Quantified Self movement, providing a new perspective in relation to its principles.