Top Nutrition Apps for Physical Therapists

Physical therapists (PTs) are stepping up their game and focusing on important in the clients' lives: social
determinants of health (SDOH), wellness, alcohol and drug use, sleep, and nutrition. As we venture into a newer world of PT practice, clinicians need to be armed with useful tools and resources to help them along the way. Let's outline some of our team's favorite nutrition apps that have helped us help many clients.

Nutrition Guide for Clinicians

Published by the well-known Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), the Nutrition Guide for Clinicians is a simple app that all Doctors of Physical Therapy (DPT) should have installed on their phones. The app allows a clinician to easily look up a condition or diagnosis, and then scroll through easily summarized data on simple nutrition tips that can contribute or treat the disease. Authors of the app list copious studies in their references for PTs to research later.

The best part of this app: it's free. You can download it now and take advantage of this amazing resource that can be taken on-the-go.

MyFitnessPal

Another amazing app is MyFitnessPal. MyFitnessPal offers PTs and clients the ability to track dietary intake day-to-day. Their database of foods is massive, so finding foods from stores, restaurants, or even homemade items is simple and detailed. Remembering what you've eaten from prior days, the app offers one of the easiest platforms for entering in food consumption. Data such as total calories, macro breakdown, and more gets produced daily. Beyond nutrition, MyFitnessPal also offers a database of exercises with estimated calorie expenditure. Don't feel like searching the exercise database? Well, fortunately the app integrates with Garmin, Polar, MapMyRun, and many other wearable technologies. Such information can be helpful to you, the movement and exercise expert, especially for your weight loss clients! Check it out today at: https://www.myfitnesspal.com/

Fooducate

Fooducate is another app that DPTs should be using with their clients. Fooducate uses a proprietary grading system that ranks food based on its "healthiness." The ranking is similar to a grading system which gives an "A" for foods that are excellent for your health and an "F" for very bad. Their app allows for individualized weight loss goals and tips, and similar to MyFitnessPal, a massive database of thousands of foods. Most impressive and engaging, the app offers PTs and patients the opportunity for community engagement. Share pics of food, recipes, and offer each other support along the path to a healthier you! Check it out today: https://www.fooducate.com/

If you like what you see here then know there is more in our 3 board-approved continuing education courses on Nutrition specific for Physical Therapists. Enroll today in our new bundled course offering and save 20%, a value of $60!

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Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ucniss/ licensed by CC 2.0

Keywords: nutrition, diet, continuing education, weight loss, technology, online, ortho, apps, PT, physical therapy, learning, wearable

Disclaimer: The above article is written as opinion piece and does not convey specific legal and/or practice act advice.

Via By Dr. Sean M. Wells, DPT, PT, OCS, ATC/L, CSCS, NSCA-CPT CNPT, Cert-DN

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