App for Nutritional choices for children launched by Chennai-based company

Vinod Kakumanu
May 31, 2021, 11:39 a.m.

While there are multiple e-learning platforms that are ensuring quality education in the time of the pandemic, there are few to give children and their parents guidance on how to maintain physical and mental health in these difficult times.

A new app called ‘fooya’ launched by a Chennai-based company, FriendsLearn, might fill this gap.

Realizing the growing problem of obesity in children, a pediatric dietary mobile game app has been devised and is now being popularized. According to the senior executives, the mobile app was in development for last 11 years and has now ready for launch.

The R&D office of the company based in San Francisco, US, conducted a trial and found that the app, named fooya! Has been effective in promoting healthy food choices. The sample of the trial was composed of 104 children aged 10 to 11. The executives of the company say that the app has a nonscientific basis and follows a psychology-based approach to engage children while tutoring them on lifestyle choices.

It is being reported the app has some exclusive features developed after working with experts from the John Hopkins University and several other universities.

A body of literature around the effects of the app is growing. The notable ones include a clinical study published in the journal JMIR mHealth and uHealth, which suggests that engaging with the app for as briefly as 20 minutes improves the food choices of children.