Cronometer is more accurate than MyFitnessPal for nutritional assessment among athletes.
Overview
- What did they test? In this study, researchers tested the inter-rater reliability (IRR) and validity of two popular nutrition tracking apps, Cronometer (CRO) and MyFitnessPal (MFP), for assessing energy, macronutrient, and micronutrient intake against data obtained using a 3-day food record and reference values from the Canadian Nutrition Federation (CNF) among endurance athletes.
- What did they find? This study showed that MyFitnessPal had low inter-rater reliability and validity for most nutrients. On the other hand, CRO had good IRR and validity for most nutrients except fiber, vitamin A, and vitamin D. There were also differences between men and women using MyFitnessPal that were not found with Cronometer.
- What does it mean for you? Accurately assessing nutritional intake is crucial for fueling performance and maintaining health, and there are several popular applications available that have made tracking nutritional intake more readily available for consumers. These applications are used by hundreds of millions of people; however, it’s unclear if the data on macro and micronutrients from these applications is accurate and reliable.
The current study showed that MFP was not very accurate for assessing nutrition intake, but CRO performed well in both IRR and validity. So, if you are planning to use a nutrition tracking application, Cronometer is a good option and is better than MFP for accuracy and reliability.
What’s the Problem?
Assessing nutrition intake accurately is important for fueling performance and recovery and maintaining health. Unfortunately, traditional methods of nutrition assessment can be time-consuming and difficult to implement in the real world 1. In the last several years, there has been an explosion in the use of applications for nutrition tracking. The most popular of these is MFP, which has a user base of over 200 million users. Another popular app in this space, CRO, has ~13 million users and is growing rapidly.
Despite their widespread use, there is limited research on whether these applications can accurately assess macro- and micronutrient data, particularly in the context of an athletic population that has higher energy demands and offers higher potential for error 2. There is also a lack of research on the reliability of these applications across users 3.
Purpose
Nutrition tracking apps have become increasingly popular over the last few decades, and hundreds of millions of people use these apps to assess their nutrition intake. Unfortunately, the reliability and validity of these apps to assess macro- and micronutrient intake are not well-established, particularly among athletes with higher energy demands. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the IRR and validity of MyFitnessPal and Cronometer, two of the most popular nutrition tracking apps for assessing nutrition intake among endurance athletes.
Hypothesis
The authors hypothesized that the inter-rater reliability would be better for CRO compared to MFP, due to the use of verified databases vs. user inputs. They also hypothesized that macronutrient outputs would be similar across MFP, CRO, and the CNF, but micronutrient levels would be different due to differences in fortification practices.
