Which Food App Tracks Nutrition Best for Athletes?
Reliability and Validity of Nutrient Assessment Applications for Canadian Endurance Athletes: MyFitnessPal and Cronometer
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
MyFitnessPal’s biggest flaws were gender-specific: men had worse protein tracking, women had inflated calorie counts.
Most people assume app errors are random—but this shows systematic bias based on gender, possibly due to how men vs. women describe foods in logs.
Practical Takeaways
Use Cronometer instead of MyFitnessPal for tracking athletic nutrition, especially for macronutrients and energy.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
MyFitnessPal’s biggest flaws were gender-specific: men had worse protein tracking, women had inflated calorie counts.
Most people assume app errors are random—but this shows systematic bias based on gender, possibly due to how men vs. women describe foods in logs.
Practical Takeaways
Use Cronometer instead of MyFitnessPal for tracking athletic nutrition, especially for macronutrients and energy.
Publication
Journal
Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics
Year
2025
Authors
O. Morello, L. McPhee, M. Kucab, Nick Bellissimo, Julia O. Totosy de Zepetnek
Related Content
Claims (5)
Cronometer is a food-tracking app that gives very consistent results when different people log the same meals — especially for endurance athletes in Canada — so researchers and doctors can trust it for accurate diet tracking.
Cronometer does a pretty good job tracking calories and key nutrients like carbs, fat, and protein for Canadian endurance athletes — its numbers are very close to the official nutrient database.
MyFitnessPal isn't very accurate for tracking calories and nutrients in Canadian endurance athletes — it often gets protein wrong for men and overestimates calories and carbs for women, so it might not be good for serious diet planning.
MyFitnessPal isn’t very reliable when it comes to tracking sodium and sugar — different people log the same foods differently, especially men, so it might not be good for studies or health advice.
The Cronometer app tends to show higher amounts of fibre and vitamins A and D in the diets of Canadian endurance athletes than what's actually in the official Canadian food database — probably because it counts fibre differently and includes fortified foods from other countries.