The Food Trainer (FoodT app) trains people to tap on images of healthy foods ― but to stop when they see unhealthy snacks, creating an association between these foods and stopping.
The new study, by the universities of Exeter and Helsinki, found that playing the game about once a day for a month led to an average one-point reduction of junk food consumption on an eight-point scale.
About half of the study's 1,234 participants followed the recommendation and played the game at least 10 times. Across all participants, an average weight loss of half a kilogram and a small increase in healthy food eaten were seen.
"As an example, someone who ate each junk food two to four times a week reduced this to once a week after using the app regularly for a month," said Professor Natalia Lawrence, of the University of Exeter.
"The app is free and it only takes about four minutes per day ― so it's something people realistically can do ― and our results suggest it is effective. And there's some evidence that the benefits were stronger for people who were more overweight."
"We would expect to see this, because the app targets mechanisms(机制)that lead people to become overweight, such as the strong desires to approach and consume junk foods."
Dr Matthias Aulbach, of the University of Helsinki, added, "For anyone with unhealthy eating habits, FoodT might be helpful."
The findings suggest that using the app regularly was linked with bigger changes in eating habits.
Dr Aulbach stressed that their findings should be interpreted cautiously (谨慎地), because there was no comparison group and other factors (such as the possibility that people who did more training were also separately more motivated to lose weight) could play a part in the results.
One app user said, "Really useful. My desires have reduced dramatically and I no longer eat in the evening mindlessly."
Development of the app was made possible by donations, and app users who allow their data to be used have enabled this research and app improvements to be made.
