Food Logger

Inspiration

I’ve struggled with disordered eating for a while now, but it’s always been pretty manageable for the most part. Maybe it was bad luck, maybe it was the pandemic wearing on me, but in January of 2021 it started becoming less manageable. Seeing a specialist helped, and so did the cognitive behavioral therapy plan we worked with. In the early phases of recovery, accountability is the most important factor. My food logs kept me accountable, but they also kept me isolated. One of the most insidious effects of an eating disorder is the way it steals you away from people you care about, and who care about you. Food brings us together, and it’s complicated enough dealing with an eating disorder. Having to scurry off to log my meals or just eat alone in my room was only a burden on top of a long and difficult road to recovery. I knew there had to be a better way. That’s where Food Logger comes into the picture. With the help of my teammates, Karson and Dorien, we created an app to help ease that burden. Food is meant to be enjoyed, and being present is part of that. Food Logger makes logging meals easier than ever and subtle too.

What it does

Food Logger is meant to be paired with CBT-E, a cognitive behavioral therapy program for eating disorder recovery. Loggers are able to log their meals, keeping track of when, what, and where they ate along with notes and other recovery specific information. Sharing your logs can be done either by exporting the logs to a CSV or shared via a QR code if your clinician also has the Food Logger app. Additionally, there is a help center in the app that puts access to a variety of crisis hotlines right in your hands, should you need it.

How we built it

The app is build using Flutter and Dart. The vast majority of the app is local. Logs are stored in memory, and when shared via QR code, the data is encrypted before being stored in our Firestore database. Logs are retrieved from Firestore using Cloud Functions as endpoints.

Challenges we ran into

There were a good number of challenges, among them were: Figuring out how to format data and store it locally on device Managing asynchronous requests to the filesystem How to securely upload encrypted logs to the internet without authenticating users Make those encrypted logs accessible to a desired user for viewing Design!

Accomplishments that we’re proud of

We are proud of being able to make an app that helps others. We are also proud that we were all able to work together extremely when it came to bouncing ideas off of each other and coming up with solutions to our problems. Finally, we are proud that we were able to develop some important features such as the ability to share logs and to hide logs.

What we learned

We learned that as a group we work extremely well together and that group work is an amazing way to get a lot of work done in a short amount of time. We also were able to use this experience to continue to develop our app programming skills and user interface skills as well. Most importantly, we learned that we can use our skills to make an impact in people's lives and make a difference.

What’s next for Food Logger

The next step is to get published on the App Store and Google Play Store. Subsequently, we have to get the word out that this app exists! While it does make logging significantly easier than using a spreadsheet, the ease of sharing is crucial as well. Many clinicians use CBT-E, and if they used Food Logger alongside the program, they could save themselves and their patients a lot of trouble.

Built With

• android-studio
• dart
• flutter
• java
• javascript
• kotlin