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Nutrition: Shaping up
According to the World Health Organization, by 2014, 39 per cent of the world’s population was overweight. With many people getting lost in a maze of conflicting advice, there’s a clear role for the fitness sector to step in and help. Kath Hudson reports on some of the programmes that aim to remove the guesswork
Virtuagym’s nutrition module
Software provider Virtuagym offers a nutrition module that members can either download as a nutrition app, or else access via an online club portal to track their exercise and food intake, as well as monitor sleep. Both the app and portal can be bespoke branded for individual clubs.
The food app generates personalised nutrition plans based on a variety of goals and lifestyles, or alternatively plans can be assigned by a coach. All nutrition plans are based on gender, height, weight, lifestyle and goals. The system isn’t restrictive in choice of food, but instead gives calorie and macronutrient targets. Users can scan their food and drink intake using barcode scanners, or combine products and save them on the system as meals they want to re-use.
Meanwhile, users of the Virtuagym fitness app can choose from 250 ready-made workouts, as well as adding exercises via their activity calendar. They can also upload data from activity trackers. The two Virtuagym apps – food and fitness – are also integrated, meaning that logged activities directly impact the daily calorie count, giving a larger calorie allowance following exercise.
All tracked progress can be accessed by coaches, allowing for effective guidance of large groups of clients, both in person and virtually. This community can then be used as a client communication tool, to share nutrition information as well as tips on healthy recipes.
Active Nutrition
Active Nation has white labelled the The Retention People’s Nutrition Complete programme as Active Nutrition. This offers a structured weight change plan with recipe and meal ideas, plus a traffic light guide to show what’s healthy.
There’s also the functionality to order the relevant shopping from a local supermarket, via a link-up with online shopping tool mySupermarket.co.uk, and have it delivered to your home.
People can buy an Active Nutrition membership online, or it’s free for those with a standard exercise-based membership. Users receive a log-in to the Active Nutrition portal, where they can personalise their account according to goals, habits, height, weight, dietary preferences and so on. A personalised meal plan is then created, showing recipes and the ingredients needed; people can veto anything they don’t like until they get their ideal nutrition plan.
Activity trackers can also be linked with the profile, or else users can upload this information manually. Graphs show progress for calories burned and consumed, activity levels and weight changes, while photos can be added to track progress.
Users also have access to lifestyle and wellness support on the website, where new articles are posted each month.
Nuffield Health: Healthy Weight Programme
Nuffield Health launched its Healthy Weight Programme in 2015 with the intention of putting an end to fad diets. This 12-week personalised programme helps individuals reach their healthy weight in a healthy way and is available in a number of Nuffield Health Fitness and Wellbeing gyms, to both members and non-members.
The programme consists of two nutrition consultations with a nutritional therapist; two Health MOTs; two one-to-one exercise sessions with a PT; and access to group food club workshops and specially designed exercise classes.
Nutritional therapists go through lifestyle demands and medical conditions to identify the right health goals and foods for each person. PTs track progress, checking measures such as blood pressure, cholesterol and BMI both at the beginning and throughout the programme. Meanwhile the two personalised exercise sessions take place one at the beginning of the scheme, and one when participants are fitter and stronger.
As weight management is proven to be easier and more effective when surrounded by others going through the same thing, the rest of the programme is delivered in a group setting: exercise taster sessions to give participants the skills and confidence to join timetabled classes, and food clubs to answer practical questions such as how to measure portion sizes and how to eat when travelling or at work.
Jiyo
Integrated with MINDBODY, Jiyo is a comprehensive digital platform that aims to support users to become their best selves through a mixture of education, intuitive tracking technology and behavioural nudges.
Its aim is to make users more aware of their behaviour, as well as identifying their unique sets of strengths, by offering insights and suggestions based on observations about their behaviour.
For example, Jiyo may note that the user tends to sleep less when he or she uses his or her phone late at night, and may automatically suggest a meditation session in the evenings. Similarly, if Jiyo notices a user has been sitting for a long period of time, it may suggest a brief desk-based exercise. From a nutrition perspective, in addition to offering behavioural nudges – such as reminding a user to drink water throughout the day, or to abate cravings for snacks by keeping cut vegetables on hand – Jiyo offers curated content from leading experts in the industry, including from renowned nutritionist and author Kimberly Snyder.
Videos and articles from experts offer information on nutrition topics, from the health benefits of chia seeds and bee pollen to the little-known truth about zero-calorie foods and their unhealthy ingredients.
MyActive: MEND
An evidence-based programme for children – devised by dieticians, psychologists and fitness instructors – MEND puts the emphasis on lifestyle and fun. It takes a holistic approach, looking at the whole family and empowering parents to change their children’s behaviour first, and then their own.
Parents are educated in making healthier food choices, such as how to read labels and how to assess what’s healthy and what isn’t, as well as suitable portion sizes. They’re also shown how to play with their children to encourage them to be more physically active. This might mean signposting them to local amenities such as parks, or encouraging them to introduce a walk to school each day.
For young children, the sessions take place once a week for 10 weeks; older children come twice weekly. MyActive tries to embed every programme in the local community, so people can continue to be active even when the programme finishes.
At the moment it’s a commissioned service, but MyActive plans to remodel the MEND brand to extend its reach; some of its principles are already being exported into MyActive’s wider golf, leisure and food experience offerings.
Vivafit
Women-only fitness franchise Vivafit offers a clinical nutrition programme as part of its membership, which includes two consultations with a qualified nutritionist, supported by weekly customised coaching emails and message-based access to a nutritionist at all times.
The nutritionist completes a health questionnaire with each participant – taking into account factors like sleep quality and stress levels, as well as assessing eating style and lifestyle patterns – before drawing up a personalised eating plan which takes into account all of these lifestyle factors.
The member is weighed and measured each month, with the information recorded and assessed by the nutritionist to see if the plan needs to be adjusted. The exercise element is overseen by fitness staff.
