FitDay is an online nutritional assessment tool that allows users to track food intake, exercise, weight, and other health metrics. The document analyzes FitDay's purpose, user interface, database mechanisms, marketing strategies, and safety. While user testimonials praise FitDay's effectiveness, the analysis finds a lack of scientific studies validating its approach and accuracy. Overall, FitDay provides a free tool for basic dietary tracking but its assessments should not be endorsed without further research.

1. FitDay.com Analysis of a
Nutritional Assessment
Tool for the 21st Century
Nutritional Assessment Winter 2011 MACN
Fitday is an online nutritional assessment tool that is targeted
to the everyday person, but does it measure up to the gold
standard and other nutritional assessment tools.
Jasmine R. Robinson
3/9/2011

2. Purpose of Tool:
Fit day is a nutritional and weight assessment tool that can help analyze a person’s diet as well
as perform as a weight loss/ weight gain analysis. The program is set up like a diet journal where you can
enter the food that was eating for a particular date. The program monitors the specific calories that
were entered, and breaks down the amount of fat, carbohydrates, and protein per food item entered.
The tool also measures the amount of micronutrients that you intake daily and weekly. Fit day also
breaks down what types of fats were eaten, and dietary fiber. It also graphs your weight loss. The
program also logs into your journal any exercise regime that was performed. As mentioned fit day also
logs in any exercise program and monitors the activity type, calories burned, distance and time, for
accurate calculations for the calories burned. Another purpose of this tool is to log in a personal goal, so
that you have a concrete visible to encourage you to make your goal happen.
Explanation to Patient:
Fit day is user friendly; it was created for the everyday person. The basic instructions for the
patient use are to create a user name and password, along with a user profile. The profile consists of
your age, weight, height, and your activity lifestyle. Based upon the information that was given in the
user profile helps to create your personal goals, and diet through, calories eaten, weight change,
nutrition graph, and average calorie balance. After the profile is created there are several tabs that a
patient can click on to enter desired data, such as food, from a selection from a database, or you can
add the specific type of food yourself, specific activities, weight, and weight goal. From these entry
points fit day keeps a record of all the entries and creates weekly to monthly reports. Under reports you
can find out specific information, such as food, nutrition, activity, metabolism, trends, body
measurements, weight, weight goal, and moods. The most important keys to managing this program is

3. being able to make a profile suited for you, along with accurate entry of data, if its food, weight, and
activity. The program will take care of the rest.
History/ Development of Tool: On several attempts I have tried to contact fitday to ask them
about the history and development of the tool via their email address and Facebook. They have not
responded back to me. Based on the nutritional assessment book there is criteria for developing high
quality databases there are some basic nutrients and nutrient factors from the USDA SR. They have to
include:
 Twelve Basic Components: energy, total fat, carbohydrate, total protein, alcohol, water,
total dietary fiber and type of fats
 Eleven vitamins
 Ten minerals
(Lee & Nieman, 2007)
There are several nutritional assessment tools that are being created every day, after several non-
responses form Fitday.com, my assumption would be that if I was curious about the history and
development of their tool; I am looking for information to market my own nutritional assessment tool
for the everyday user.
Plausible or Purported Mechanism:
The purported mechanism of the tool is the use of a food database similar to the food pyramid.
For the dietary log, once you type in a type of food i.e. coconut milk, then a database of similar foods
comes up. If your desired food does not come up you can add a food to the database along with
nutritional value. This is how they are able to add to their database and also make it custom for that
specific profile user. Also the program remembers the type of food that a person enters do that they

4. create a mini-database for that customized user. Based upon the food log the information is broken
down based upon how many fats, carbohydrates, protein and calories. The same type of database is
used for the activity log, there are list of standard activities that are kept in a data base, and once you
pick the appropriate activity the only addition that the patient will have to add is the amount of time
worked out to calculate the appropriate calories burned. With the logged in formation this will help
determine the calories intake, burned, nutritional information, which includes (fats, carbs, protein,
vitamins and minerals compared to the RDA.) Once the information is logged within its prospective
areas, pie charts can be formed based upon the information entered, and the information can be use to
assess the management of your weight goal, along with nutritional goals.
Safety of Use:
Since this nutritional analysis requires only data entry, there are no immediate health
concerns. This tool is cost effective, because it’s free and it can also save you money on going to a
nutritionist or dietitian. If you do not understand nutritional concepts or the amount of protein, and
what RDA value means then consultation may be warranted by a professional. Patients who have
serious medical or psychological issues may become addicted to using this program, due to their
fascination of calorie counting. If a patient has body dysmorphic disorders seeing the amount of calories
eating especially the breakdown of fats, carbohydrates and protein, will encourage them to go the
extreme with their nutrition. The same effect can go with the activity log. A person suffering with body
dysmorphic issues may become obsessed with how many calories burned or the amount of weight loss.
These general issues may play a part in the overall safety of this product. This concern is for men and
women, with men the concern of muscle mass and women how small that they look. (Beers, Porter,
Jones, Kaplan, & Berkwits, 2006) Monitoring patients with special needs may be monitored with the use
of this program. Other than that there are no other safety concerns with the use of this program.

5. Case Studies, Testimonials, Methods of marketing Tool:
Fitday has become a wide spread tool. Their target audience is a population that is weight
and health conscience. They advertise in journals that are more fitness friendly and advocate for weight
loss. Some of their marketing strategies are, having an apple application for I-touch, phone and I- pad.
Another strong advertising point is using Jillian (biggest loser workout guru) picture on their website.
Using her as a marketing tool is a good way to get people to join from her avid success with people
losing weight. If she endorses the program then most people would like use the program based upon
her popularity. They are also found on facebook where you can connect with other fit day users to find
out different weight loss regimes, different news stories ect. FitDay has also advertised in various well
known magazines such as the Washington Post, Woman’s world, and health and fitness just to name a
few. Fitday has worked for many people, and some decided to share their success story, a few are
mentioned below:
“I have been using www.fitday.com for about seventeen months now. It was recommended
by my personal trainer for a way to track everything I eat during the day. Since I'm at a computer all
day, it is easy to log on and enter in what I'm eating. I like to see how my calories add up and where
they are coming from. I think fitday has a great database of foods. I'm glad I was introduced to this
weight-loss tool. (Katie, 2011, Fitday.com)”
“I'm 37 years old and I lost 50 pounds using FitDay.com in early 2005... I've kept the weight off
for almost an entire year and I'm in the best shape of my life. I have now run two marathons and
competed in a 100 mile bike race. I still use FitDay every day and have convinced numerous friends
and family members to do the same.” (Steve,2011, Fitday.com)
Synopsis of Literature:

6. Internet based weight loss programs are on the rise. There are a few studies that looked at
general weight loss programs, but no studies were done that used fitday as the specific assessment tool.
This particular study is a Study protocol of how to assess a commercial based internet weight loss
program.
Study One:
Internet weight loss programs for overweight and obesity population using RCT
Methods: Study was a RCT with 3 groups over an 18 month time span. The subjects to be used
are 18-60 years old that fit the inclusion criteria of the study.
Group one Wait list control – Monitored their weight not using an Internet based program
Group two - Basic Online program – Used an online program that had the following features
 Individualized daily calorie targets
 Online food and exercise diaries
 Weekly calorie controlled food menu plans’
 Weekly physical activity plan
 Weekly educational tips
 Weekly calculations for energy balance and nutrition summaries
 Goal Setting
(More in the paper, these listed have the same features as the fitday program. )
Group 3 – Enhanced online program
This group has access to the same features as group two but they also have access to receive feedback
on their weight loss and physical activity progress.

7. Both groups also had similar features for the physical activity log. With each group the study took actual
data, height, weight, waist circumference body mass index, blood sample markers, blood pressure, and
dietary questionnaire using Australian eating survey and physical activity questionnaire in order to
compare to the online diet diary and physical activity log. The actual program that they were assessing
was the Australian Biggest Loser Blub online food and exercise diary. (Sponsored by international food
and exercise database). This database has been recorded to have 70,000 foods, 20,000 Australian foods,
250 food proportions, 5000 meals and 1000 exercise. The online dietary and physical journals will be
compared to the objective measurements that are taking at the 3, 6, and 18th month mark and
comparisons will be made.
The Results:
Surveys will periodically be taking 3,6,18 month mark to assess the ease of the program and the features
of the program, also objective measurements, were taken that included the amount of logins and data
entries, also with the objective measurements the baseline that included weight, blood sample and
blood pressure just to name a few and at the 3, 6, and 18th month mark. The analysis tool to be used is
a generalized linearly mixed models .This particular study was a theoretical idea of how to check the
validity of an internet based weight loss programs.
(Collins, et al., 2010)
Appropriate Patient Selection Criteria
Fitday can be used by any type of person. The appropriate person that might find the most use
out of fitday, is a person that may want to be more conscious about their nutritional status along with
being more physically fit. The specific population is adults from the ages of 18-60 males and females.
The main exclusions that might be necessary are pregnant and lactating mothers, because their caloric

8. and weight gain is not within the national standard. Fitday may not be useful for someone who has
body image disorders, they may take what the program says and may change their diet based upon
extreme measures. Also certain athletes that such as ballet dancers, body builders, may be of concern
because they like to calorie restrict, and may take visual data to the extreme. I feel that they may not
benefit well from using this program independently. If they have a dietary clinician or nutritionist
monitor their usage then I feel that it will be safer for them to use.
Conclusion
Fitday is a nutritional assessment program that is focused on the nutritional status and caloric
intake to help the everyday person meet and maintain their health goal. There many nutritional
assessment tools that use a food and exercise database, the gold standard being the food pyramid.
Fitday is very safe and an effective tool as, told from many testimonials that are written on their website
and the broad expansion through apple and social medias such as facebook. I think that fitday is a
popular nutritional assessment tool, but it does lack scientific data, such as case studies and research
studies. Also there was a lack of information on the history and development of the tool to help with the
scientific validation. Without the knowledge of how the tool was develops, there is no scientific
validation that this tool actually uses the correct food break down and nutritional data. The only
validation that the tool has is the testimonials that fit day users have lost weight and are managing their
diets well. Overall, fit day is a pretty good program but needs scientific validation before it should be
endorsed by dietitians and clinical nutritionist.
Works Cited
Beers, M. H., Porter, R., Jones, T., Kaplan, J., & Berkwits, M. (2006). The Merk Manual of Dianosis and
Therapy. Whitehouse Station: Merk Research Laboratories.

9. Collins, C. E., Morgan, P. J., Jones, P., Fletcher, K., martin, J., Aguiar, E., et al. (2010). Evaluationof a
commercial web-based weight loss and wieght loss maintence program in overweight and obese
adults: A Randomiase controll trial. BMC Public Health , 1-8.
Lee, R., & Nieman, D. (2007). Nutritional Assessment. New York: McGraw Hill.