Public Health England Sugar Smart App Downloaded Two Million Times, Exceeds Expectations

Public Health England (PHE) launched their Sugar Smart app at the beginning of 2016 to encourage parents to better understand their children’s sugar intake. Since then, it has been downloaded two million times – which was four times more than originally expected.

 

The app is free to download and easy to use: simply scan the barcode of a particular item and the result shows how much sugar it contains (in grams or the equivalent number of 4g sugar cubes).

 

“The app takes information from the product item to a recipe ingredients catalogue and transforms them into cubes of sugar,” Ian Pocock, award-winning service design communications specialist and Director of Transform, explained to NutritionInsight.

 

”The principle around the app is its simplicity: It’s really simple and really effective. You have to provide people with simple information; percentage daily allowances [of sugar] are very difficult to understand, but everybody understands sugar cubes,” he added.

 

The recommended daily maximum added sugar intake is:
· 19g, equal to 5 sugar cubes for children aged 4 to 6
· 24g, equal to 6 sugar cubes for children aged 7 to 10
· 30g, equal to 7 sugar cubes for children aged 11 or older

 

Health Europe designed the multi-media event to share information and examples of good practice across Europe. As well as speakers from the European Commission and government agencies, there were also a series of workshops demonstrating beneficial public health outcomes drawn from the UK and Europe.

 

“The impact of lifestyle behaviors on long-term health conditions is substantial, and is driving the ever increasing demand on health and care services,” the Health Europe Team stated.

 

“In our modern face paced world, which offers so much opportunity to make great strides in progress, we also run the risk of being inundated with information. So much so, that it can be hard to focus on what actually works to the benefit of patients and across very different systems of healthcare provision.”

 

Feedback obtained from Transform states that parents believe their children are now more aware of sugar containing foods and beverages after using the app.

 

Transform is a leader in customer-centered change. The company has worked alongside health organizations conceiving, designing, and rolling-out new digital behavior change services. Other health-related apps that they have worked on for PHE include those for their successful One You program: The One You Drinks Tracker app compares drinking with the alcohol unit guidelines; whereas the One You Easy Meals app uses recipe swaps to help people eat healthier versions of the foods they love.

 

Following the recent news questioning official low fat dietary advice (reported in NutritionInsight on 23 May 2016), there are no plans to work on a fat content app.