HyperFit: Hybrid media in personal nutrition and exercise management

HyperFit is an Internet service for personal management of nutrition and exercise. It provides tools for promoting healthy diet and physical activity. The principle of the service is to mimic the process of personal nutrition counseling. It includes self evaluation tools for testing and goal definition, food and exercise diaries, analysis tools, and feedback and encouragement given by a virtual trainer. Recommendations by the Finnish National Nutrition Council are used as the nutritional basis for the service. HyperFit uses a food database that contains the nutritional information for approximately 2,500 food products and categories, both product-specific and average. Hybrid media combining print and mobile technology are applied to improve the usability and arouse interest. The service is used both with a mobile phone and PC. A camera phone can be used to add food and exercise entries to the diaries by reading product barcodes. HyperFit has been tested with potential individual users, weight management groups and nutritionists’ counseling clients in several field trials. Participants of the trials have been content with the system. The trials suggest that a HyperFit type of service can be used to promote independent weight management and the use of hybrid media gives extra value to the service. A patent application has been submitted for the system and the commercialization of the service is on the way.