image: Cleveland Clinic Diet App Home Screen
Credit: Cleveland Clinic and FitNow
Embargoed until 4am EDT Cleveland, OH (Thursday, June 27, 2024) – Cleveland Clinic and app developer FitNow, Inc. have launched the Cleveland Clinic Diet app, which offers health and diet advice built upon evidence-based nutrition science and clinical success, paired with a comprehensive food and fitness tracker.
The app provides individualized guided support with the input of Cleveland Clinic health experts to help users make sustainable changes to their lifestyle and dietary habits for better health and well-being.
“We know that health is about far more than just weight. The goal of the Cleveland Clinic Diet app is to approach each individual’s health status and goals beyond the numbers on the scale.” said Julia Zumpano, RD, LD, a registered dietitian at Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Human Nutrition, who helped design programs on the app. “We aim to help individuals overcome barriers and support them in creating lasting improvements in their health. We take into account their individual needs and preferences to both look and, importantly, feel their best.”
The app also provides a curated series of courses from experts in nutrition, endocrinology, metabolism, heart health, digestive health, weight management and mental health. In addition, the app utilizes FitNow’s easy-to-use tracking system, through which individuals log what they have eaten by scanning a nutrition label, taking a photo or voice logging.
The app lets users pick from two tracks:
• The BodyGuard plan – Designed to help achieve a balanced intake of essential nutrients. This track emphasizes a diverse array of macronutrients and mindful monitoring of sugar intake to promote stable energy levels and increased vitality.
• The HeartSmart plan – Informed by Cleveland Clinic’s global authority relating to heart care, this plan is designed to boost cardiovascular well-being, whether someone has diagnosed heart disease, is concerned about their family history or wants to make lifestyle changes to protect their heart.
The Cleveland Clinic Diet app was built in collaboration with FitNow, a leading mobile health and wellness app developer and maker of the popular weight loss app, Lose It!
“We’re thrilled to combine Cleveland Clinic’s expert experience and content with our proven behavior change platform,” said Eric Puidokas, managing director and Chief Product Officer at FitNow. “With this exceptional combination, users are guided every step of the way as they work toward their individual health goals.”
“For most people, one of the biggest challenges is determining how to not only manage weight, nutrition and health goals, but to sustain them,” Zumpano said. “We know a lot of factors go into being healthier, so the goal for this app is to guide users through the process, step by step.”
To help support users throughout the process and make them feel comfortable, Cleveland Clinic’s plan is built by health experts with no judgment and no “fads” or strict nutrition plans. It includes:
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Empathetic and easy-to-understand content from health and medical writers that meet users where they are in their health journeys
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A food search and recommendation engine containing billions of food entries
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AI-powered speech-to-text recognition voice logging
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Image logging via a proprietary machine-learning algorithm that detects individual food items from images of full meals
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Rapid barcode scanning and recognition software
“Our goal was to launch the most accurate and rapid food voice logging available,” said Will Lowe, Ph.D., FitNow Chief Data Scientist, who collaborated with teams of data scientists, product developers, designers and engineers to offer voice logging within the Cleveland Clinic Diet app.“This works hand-in-hand with our nutrition label and barcode scanning, and our Snap It to Track It food and meal photo capture. So far, we’re seeing the Cleveland Clinic Diet app voice logging deliver extremely high accuracy when it comes to detecting food and quantity. We believe this is a game changer for those seeking to more easily log their meals.”
The Cleveland Clinic Diet app was recognized as a Gold recipient of the Spring 2024 Digital Health Awards for excellence in the Mobile Application category.
The Cleveland Clinic Diet app is available for a free 7-day trial on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.
About Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. Located in Cleveland, Ohio, it was founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation. Cleveland Clinic has pioneered many medical breakthroughs, including coronary artery bypass surgery and the first face transplant in the United States. Cleveland Clinic is consistently recognized in the U.S. and throughout the world for its expertise and care. Among Cleveland Clinic’s 77,000 employees worldwide are more than 5,658 salaried physicians and researchers, and 19,000 registered nurses and advanced practice providers, representing 140 medical specialties and subspecialties. Cleveland Clinic is a 6,699-bed health system that includes a 173-acre main campus near downtown Cleveland, 23 hospitals, more than 275 outpatient facilities, including locations in northeast Ohio; southeast Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; Toronto, Canada; Abu Dhabi, UAE; and London, England. In 2022, there were 12.8 million outpatient encounters, 303,000 hospital admissions and observations, and 270,000 surgeries and procedures throughout Cleveland Clinic’s health system. Patients came for treatment from every state and 185 countries. Visit us at clevelandclinic.org. Follow us at twitter.com/ClevelandClinic. News and resources available at newsroom.clevelandclinic.org.
Editor’s Note: Cleveland Clinic News Service is available to provide broadcast-quality interviews and B-roll upon request.
About FitNow, Inc.
FitNow, Inc. is a leading producer of fitness and wellness mobile applications. Their flagship product, the Lose It! app, was one of the first mobile applications on the Apple App Store in 2008. It has helped over 50 million members lose over 140 million pounds and is consistently ranked one of the top weight loss apps in the market. FitNow, Inc. also produces the Challenges app, a team wellness product that gamifies healthy eating and exercise behaviors. FitNow apps leverage one of the largest and continuously growing community-sourced food databases built on billions of food logging entries and biometric insights engines enabled by their world class AI, data science and engineering teams that today continue to revolutionize food data intake and behavior change technology boasting highest precision accuracy and unparalleled convenience. FitNow, Inc joined the Everyday Health Group, a division of Ziff Davis, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZD) in the spring of 2022.