Nutrition-Related Mobile Apps in the French App Store: Assessment of Functionality and Quality (Preprint)

International audience ; Background: The global burden of disease attributes 20% of deaths to poor nutrition. Although hundreds of nutrition-related mobile apps have been created, and these have been downloaded by millions of users, the effectiveness of these technologies on the adoption of healthy eating has had mixedObjective: The aim of this study was to review which nutrition-related mobile apps are currently available on the French market and assess their quality.Methods: We screened apps on the Google Play Store and the French Apple App Store, from March 10 to 17, 2021, to identify those related to nutritional health. A shortlist of 15 apps was identified, and each was assessed using the French version of the Mobile App Rating Scale: 8 dietitians and nutritionists assessed 7 apps, and the remaining apps were randomly allocated to ensure 4 assessments per app. Intraclass correlation was used to evaluate interrater agreement. Means and standard deviations of scores for each section and each item were calculated.Results: The top scores for overall quality were obtained by Yazio - Régime et Calories (mean 3.84, SD 0.32), FeelEat (mean 3.71, SD 0.47), and Bonne App (mean 3.65, SD 0.09). Engagement scores ranged from a mean of 1.95 (SD 0.5) for iEatBetter: Journal alimentaire to a mean of 3.85 (SD 0.44) for FeelEat. Functionality scores ranged from a mean of 2.25 (SD 0.54) for Naor to a mean of 4.25 (SD 0.46) for Yazio. Aesthetics scores ranged from a mean of 2.17 (SD 0.34) for Naor to a mean of 3.88 (SD 0.47) for Yazio. Information scores ranged from a mean of 2.38 (SD 0.60) for iEatBetter to a mean of 3.73 (SD 0.29) for Yazio. Subjective quality scores ranged from a mean of 1.13 (SD 0.25) for iEatBetter to a mean of 2.28 (SD 0.88) for Compteur de calories FatSecret. Specificity scores ranged from a mean of 1.38 (SD 0.64) for iEatBetter to a mean of 3.50 (SD 0.91) for FeelEat. The app-specific score was always lower than the subjective quality score, which was always lower than the quality score, which was ...