Jan 11th, 2023
3 mins
Bournemouth University have developed a new FREE app which will tell people whether the food they are eating is of the right type and portion size to meet the UK recommended five portions of fruits and vegetables per day.
The development of the app followed research which revealed that whilst most of the UK adult population were aware of ‘5 a day’, very few actually knew how to achieve it.
“It was clear that a lot of people did not know what counts towards the target, they did not know what a portion size is, and many did not realise that they needed to eat five different things.” said Katherine Appleton, Professor of Psychology at Bournemouth University, who led the studies and the development of the new app.
The “5-a-day” campaign was launched by the UK Government to encourage people to increase their consumption of fruit and vegetables to at least five portions. However, figures show that there is still a large proportion of the population who are not achieving this. Figures from Public Health England (PHE) show that just 52.4% of 15year olds and 55.4% of adults eat the recommended five portions.
You can read more about the “SMART-5-A-DAY” app here
