We write this because calorie apps — ours included — can be an excellent health tool, or fuel for a harmful relationship with food. The difference deserves an honest conversation.
The scale of the problem here
A study of adolescent schoolgirls in Riyadh found that 29.6% scored 20 or above on the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26) — indicating high risk of disordered eating behaviour[1]. A study in Arar found the figure at 25.47% among adolescent girls[2]. In Jeddah, eating disorder prevalence using the ESP questionnaire was 19.5% among women and 7.6% among men[3].
risk zone (EAT-26)
(ESP questionnaire)
Arab cities
And across the region
A study of adolescents (15–18) in seven Arab cities found disordered eating behaviour highly prevalent in both males (13.8–47.3%) and females (16.2–42.7%), with the risk of disordered eating attitudes twice as high among females in several countries[4].
When does discipline become a problem?
- Food occupies your thoughts most of the day.
- You avoid social occasions for fear of eating — and gatherings are central to our lives.
- Intense guilt after a small deviation, followed by compensation through restriction or excessive exercise.
- Episodes of eating with a sense of loss of control.
- Compensatory behaviours: vomiting, laxatives, forced fasting.
- Your weight or shape determines your worth as a person.
How to use a calorie app healthily
- The number is a tool, not a judge: exceeding it one day doesn't mean you failed as a person.
- Don't lower your target every time your weight falls — an extreme deficit is a warning sign, not discipline.
- If tracking causes you daily anxiety, stop — the tool serves you, not the reverse.
- Weight stigma feeds these disorders (the article).