{"id":483,"date":"2022-03-30T13:05:24","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T12:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/?p=483"},"modified":"2022-03-30T13:31:01","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T12:31:01","slug":"new-nhs-food-scanner-handy-government-diet-hack-or-virtual-reality-nightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/2022\/03\/30\/new-nhs-food-scanner-handy-government-diet-hack-or-virtual-reality-nightmare\/","title":{"rendered":"New NHS Food Scanner: Handy government diet \u201chack\u201d or virtual reality nightmare"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Natalie Partridge<\/strong> is a third year Sociology PhD student at Newcastle University, researching food policy. Adding to our longstanding thread of blogs on food<\/a>, Natalie tries the NHS Food Scanner App: the UK government\u2019s latest addition to the Better Health campaign.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

New year, new me! I\u2019ve been jogging, had salad for lunch at least twice and subscribed to a 30-day yoga \u2018journey\u2019 (cringe) on YouTube. So, on the 9th of January when the launch of the new NHS Food Scanner App was announced, I thought I\u2019d better have a look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not really the NHS Food Scanner\u2019s target market. The app is designed for parents and children to use, ideally while they\u2019re out doing their food shopping. The promise is simple: \u201chack\u201d your diet with mostly like-for-like food swaps to reduce sugar, salt and fat intake. On the face of it, that sounds benign. The promotional video<\/a> even contains the sunny phrase: \u201cactually, you can make a healthier choice and it\u2019s still pizza!\u201d What could possibly go wrong?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
– Credit: Better Health Campaign\u2019s NHS Food Scanner App \u2013 the introductory pages<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I downloaded the app. The Google reviews are a little menacing, but it\u2019s straightforward to get going with an encouraging four-step introduction slideshow (above). I can\u2019t be bothered to go to the supermarket, so I head to the kitchen, grab a few typical breakfast ingredients and set them out on the table. I\u2019m partly looking for positive reinforcement of my attempt at a super-virtuous January diet, so I pull out crunchy peanut butter, wholemeal bread, fruit (none of which is barcoded, disastrously) and coffee. I\u2019m a bit irritated when the scanner doesn\u2019t recognise the barcode on my bread, but it\u2019s brown bread, so probably fine? My coffee is a \u201cGo Go Green!\u201d option, containing 0.8 sugar cubes per pack, whatever that means. The little green cartoon from Change4Life does a victory dance under a sprinkling of confetti.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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– Credit: Better Health Campaign\u2019s NHS Food Scanner App<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It all starts to unravel when I scan my peanut butter. I don\u2019t eat peanut butter all that often, so I\u2019m more motivated by taste than price, although it is a little salty. It takes a long time for the scanner to work. I stand next to the window to make the best of the dull, grey daylight. I suppose the lighting is better than this in supermarkets. When the Food Scanner does eventually find my peanut butter, I wish it hadn\u2019t. I\u2019m whisked straight to a page with an angry army of little grub-like fat blobs advising me that each pack of peanut butter (an utterly useless measurement) contains 35.9g saturated fat. I\u2019m then invited to \u201csee it to believe it\u201d in a virtual reality world where the grubs chase and overpower a poor blue cartoon character and jump on the corpse. Disheartened and a bit indignant, I check out the swaps, all of which, oddly, are sugar-free jams. Even if I were to want jam, which I don\u2019t, I can\u2019t find the top item on any supermarket website. A similar product has a warning that it\u2019s \u201cbest to eat less than 44g per day\u201d to avoid a laxative effect from the sorbitol, the main ingredient. There is no mention of the recommended daily intake for children, so let\u2019s hope it\u2019s the same. I also notice the jam is over double the price of the (sugary) equivalent supermarket own-brand jam. I think I\u2019ll stick to my peanut butter. Or at a push, marmite, which the app doesn\u2019t recognise, or cream cheese, which I am advised to swap for lower fat but higher sugar, and differently flavoured, alternatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
– Credit: Better Health Campaign\u2019s NHS Food Scanner App<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Has Better Health missed the mark with this app?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this has left a bad taste in my mouth. I used the Food Scanner for 10 minutes and it failed to scan half the foods I wanted it to. I\u2019m glad I\u2019m in my own kitchen. But I spare a thought for parents with their children, in busy supermarkets, squeezed by price increases and shrinkflation, understandably worried about health not least because we\u2019re in a pandemic, all while trying to navigate these messages. Despite the glossy promotional material<\/a>, I\u2019m not expecting this to be overly positively received or particularly widely used. Although maybe I\u2019m just being hypercritical of a well-intentioned, free tool designed to make it easier to eat healthily at home – most newspapers so far have covered its release but reserved comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, let\u2019s bypass for a moment the strange, expensive \u2018swaps\u2019 you can\u2019t find at the supermarket. Let\u2019s also overlook the negative messaging reminiscent of the \u201cEat Them to Defeat Them\u201d fruit and vegetable campaign (which some argue did actually work), and the fact the Food Scanner is aimed, at least indirectly, towards children. The most concerning aspect of this app might be the sheer unwillingness to query the consumption of highly processed and convenience foods. This feels unsurprising from a government that resists use of the descriptor \u201cultra-processed\u201d in food policy contexts<\/a>, potentially rightly, as the debate plods on. In any case, those interested in a more ambitious policy approach to improve nutrition outcomes will likely be disappointed by this addition to the Better Health campaign. I mean, the app’s promotional video<\/a> tells viewers that large 2L plastic bottles of artificially sweetened lemonade are a \u201cgood choice\u201d, without even a cursory attempt to suggest a swap to water. While the toddler in the video might be delighted by that, an alternative strategy might be to avoid the Scanner, buy as much fruit and veg as possible, and hope for the best with everything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor\u2019s note: Having tested the app for five minutes it recognised almost none of the items I scanned and was difficult and clunky to use. I would agree with Natalie, probably avoid and just try and buy fruit and veg!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Natalie Partridge is a third year Sociology PhD student at Newcastle University, researching food policy. Adding to our longstanding thread of blogs on food, Natalie tries the NHS Food Scanner App: the UK government\u2019s latest addition to the Better Health … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9279,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9279"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":495,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions\/495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}