Updated: July 1, 2022 
A healthy and nutritious lifestyle has been the talk of the town for the past few years. It continues to boost in the coming years because of the popularity of mobile applications and healthy food.
The advancement of technology has made people adopt sedentary lifestyles, which has reduced the amount of physical work we used to perform earlier.
The gym is also a successful business, but everyone is not fit or has the time to go to a gym daily. Moreover, some still join the gym but procrastinate for the rest of the year. Thus, a healthy lifestyle is crucial to lead a good life to keep themselves away from obesity-related fatal diseases.
And for such audiences, diet or nutrition mobile applications are the savior as they let people track everything and follow a proper diet.
Ergo, many startups and business entrepreneurs are working in this niche market by targeting health-conscious people and helping them with a relaxed lifestyle, food tracker mobile applications, and much more.
If you are health-conscious and have a great nutrition app development idea, we will help you understand every aspect of diet app development in this article.
What is a Nutrition and Diet Tracking App?
The diet and nutrition tracking app help users stay healthy, lose weight, and build muscle. Diet trackers, nutrition planners, and calorie counter apps connect users and nutrition coaches.
Aside from that, other apps such as pregnancy nutrition, bodybuilding, vegan nutrition, diet-tracking, health activity tracker apps, and so on are popular among users.
Diet and Nutrition Apps Stats
The diet and nutrition planning app is popular among audiences because of its convenience. As per Statista, the revenue in the nutrition mobile app sector is expected to reach the US $0.68 billion by the end of 2022 and US $0.85 billion by 2026 at a CGPR of 5.56%,
Besides this, in the year 2025, the diet and nutrition app segment will have a user penetration of 9.94 percent, and from these stats, it is clear that the nutrition app development has a bright future.
And it is the best time to develop nutrition and diet apps by hitting a nutrition app development company for your business.
How does a dietitian or nutrition app work?
In the food nutrition app, a user sets a goal: their current weight and their target to lose weight to look for food recommendations.
The user then enters data about their daily activities as well as the foods they consume.
The simple nutrition app then determines how many calories they’ve consumed and how many calories they’ve burned.
Then finally, makes a meal plan for customers depending on the data to help them achieve their health goals.
Who will be your target audience?
If you are thinking of developing an app, normally, what people do is start looking to hire an app developer with experience in developing nutrition apps.
But before proceeding ahead, you must take out time and undergo detailed research about your target audience. You need to specify the category of customers you want to consider, for example, working professionals, diabetic patients, etc., to clearly understand your target audience, their likings, and much more.
Moreover, you can easily plan out the app’s business model, design, structure, and marketing strategy after comprehending your target customers. All that is left will be the features you want to include in your mobile app.
Things to consider before developing a diet and nutrition mobile app
– Idea GenerationThe first stage is to explore different ideas and does as much research as possible on the existing mobile apps to determine how the nutrition app works, list all the features, and then decide what precisely you want to target, which type of app you want to develop.
– Buyer PersonasTo develop a nutrition app, you should define the user personas, like who is your target audience, what are the loopholes in your competitor’s apps, and what type of app your user wants?
However, this is tough to accomplish in today’s lifestyles, where fast food is readily available and motivation and time for physical activities are scarce. So, look in-depth and decide on your solution.
– ResearchConversations and feedback from your target audience are the next steps in the research process. Thus, look for ways to alleviate the pain points of your users.
– MVPDefine the Features of the nutrition apps with which you want to launch an app in the marketplace
Once you have decided everything about your app, it’s the right time to develop an app.
Must-have features to include in your mobile app
– Registration
The first thing that happens when you visit the gym or a nutritionist is that you fill out a registration form. Similarly, a diet & nutrition app allows users to register so that you have their important information.
Don’t ask for many details; make it simple so your users may not get annoyed by registering in your mobile app. Also, give them the option to signup using social media accounts like sign up via google, email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
– Dashboard
It is an important feature after registration because an interactive mobile app dashboard leads to app success.
Thus, after successful sign-in/signup, the app must direct users to a screen that contains all relevant details, such as food intake, progress as per their fitness goals, various tips to follow a nutritious diet, and more.
As a result, ensure that you give a significant amount of time and money to the UI/UX of your app.
– Push notifications
Push notifications are crucial because it is known for retaining customers. However, you must understand the essence and see how it can be applied to your health and diet apps.
Push Notifications remind your users of their daily workouts or meal time. You can also use it to encourage them to push harder.
In other words, it is a two-edged sword because if you use it too much, your customer may become irritated and can uninstall your app.
– Health goals or healthy diet plan
One of the basic functions of the nutrition and diet app is to direct users toward a healthy diet and help them complete the desired health goals.
As a result, when the user specifies any goal, such as desired weight, eating habits, and food items they like the most, the app must recommend a diet plan that is appropriate for them by not letting them change much of their food habits.
All of the elements that correspond to the user’s preferences must be included in the diet as it is the basic function of your app, so make sure it is highly effective.
– Integration with fitness devices
Fitness trackers, also known as wearable devices, have become a worldwide trend among fitness enthusiasts. As per Statista, global spending on wearable devices is expected to exceed $90 million by 2022.
People prefer wearable devices because they record important information like heart rate, blood pressure, pulse, etc. Without any wearables devices, the user would have to manually fill in the information, which would be both time-consuming and inaccurate.
So, it is a must-have feature for integrating wearables or fitness trackers if you want to go with health app development.
– Feedback
Every mobile app should have a feedback section. User feedback is an excellent way to enhance and make an app run smoothly.
If there are loopholes, the users can assist you in identifying them. Furthermore, they can suggest additional features they would like to see on the app.
– Barcode Scanner
This is a perfectly smooth replacement for the manual food login. If you create a diet app using these features, your buyers will gain several benefits at once:
1. When feasible, customers can simplify the payment process by scanning a barcode, which best enhances the overall user experience.
2. They will also have more precise data about the number of calories consumed because they will not be relying on guesswork.
– Shopping List
If you want to encourage users to use your app more frequently, you must add a shopping list feature to let them choose products directly from their food database, which greatly improves the user experience.
– Recipe Book
A cookbook of healthy recipes can benefit your visitors, save their time, and provide them with a motive to use your app regularly. It would be even better if your app allowed users to add ingredients of a recipe directly to their in-app shopping list.
– Gamification
People prefer challenges over anything else when it comes to mobile apps. Gamification elements foster a sense of competition in your consumers, motivating them to become more active users and achieve new goals.
The business model for nutrition and diet mobile app
Two types of business models go with nutrition and diet mobile applications.
1. Self-owned app business model is confined to a single owner who wants to sell products and services, meaning it is defined as a single brand.
2. The second is an aggregator food & health tracking app where various specialists give consultations to customers and sell services that are uniform in price and quality.
Ways to monetize your mobile application
A great monetization method helps your brand earn money, so choose an ideal model that suits your app and benefits you.
– Paid Membership
We normally develop apps on both platforms, Android and iOS. Thus, if you pay your app, it will help you earn.
– eCommerce
You can endorse the products of a brand that provides things related to the industry using this app monetization method.
– Commissions
The app’s owners charge a certain portion of each transaction that takes place through the app. Thus, all diet and nutrition app transactions are transparent, letting app owners figure out seller percentages in exchange for providing them with a platform to advertise.
– In-app advertisements
When a mobile app succeeds, it allows businesses to promote their products or services on the app’s landing page and inside pages. These in-app advertisements are simple to set up and can provide a quick source of income.
– Freemium Business Model
This model helps you attract users by letting you offer both basic and advanced features and allure users to pay to access advanced content.
Different types of nutrition app
– Calorie counters
It is the most common type of nutrition app, and its key role is to track calories consumed or burned throughout the day. Using such an app, users can set a goal and their weight. After that, the user enters information about their daily activities and food intake, and the app calculates their consumption and burns rate.
– Waterlogged apps
Enables you to take pictures of your drinking vessels, and automatically logging your hydration levels will help ensure you’re taking enough water. Users can also set reminders to drink water.
– Special diet app
A diet app for pregnant women or a food allergy app with an ingredients database will tell you how a particular food is compatible with your allergies and intolerant sensitivities.
– Meal planning apps
It allows users to record their caloric intake even before they eat. Users can select their weight-loss objectives, food, and diet habits. The app includes a comprehensive diet plan based on the information provided for a day, week, or month.
– Marketplace
Users can connect with diet specialists for customized health advice through marketplace apps.
Cost of diet and nutrition mobile app development
The cost of mobile app development varies as per technology, features, location of app developers, and mobile app platform. Thus, it is difficult to determine the app development plan as the overall cost will depend upon the factors mentioned above.
If we talk about the hourly rate of developers, it will vary as per developers location, like Indian developer costs $30-$85 per hour, US developer costs $75 -$265 per hour, etc.
Wrapping up
The demand for diet and nutrition apps is enormous. However, the cost to develop an app depends upon various factors like framework, technology, features, etc. So, before developing an app, you must consider all the facts and look for an app development company that will develop a feature-rich app that offers a user experience.
+918968519881