If the struggle of stuffing summer guilt into freshly washed jeans was not real, good old Google is all set to launch Im2calories (oh no, they’re not!) which uses an algorithm to analyse pictures of food on Instagram and the calories in them. The app essentially identifies the pixels in the image and calculates the calories based on its size relative to the plate.
Instagram was probably once the least vitriolic app in the digital space. Not anymore. The app is now being tied to calorie counting – which by default puts it right up there with the likes of Carrot, a fitness app designed to shame you.
However, even if purists were to claim that this is for the greater cause of curing obesity, the fact remains that Instagram prides itself on hashtags like #foodporn and #foodgasms. Such posts in fact fly off the charts with people liking and commenting by the dozen, making this new development quite hard to digest. No pun intended.
It’s a gimmick. People who post photos of food on Instagram of decadent brunches are doing so because they like to eat them. It’s hard to shame users in such a scenario.
– Harshil Karia, CEO, Schbang Digital Solutions
Will you Count Your Calories – the Ayes and the Nays
The truth is a lot of food pictures on Instagram work on sheer gluttony and most people don’t post photos of their daily dal chawal meals. No one will be posting lauki and baingan bharta pictures. We post photos of rich, glorious, scrumptious food because it’s an occasion, or because that meal was made for us or because there was something so fulfilling that we just had to share it.
But insist as they may, Google has ensured that Instagram will guilt you even for your cheat day posts.
It’s irrelevant and meaningless. Calorie burning is dependent on so many other factors like time of day and your body’s condition at that time. Something like this will cause more stress and make experts out of novices.
– Jasjit Singh, Fitness Expert
Not everyone is voicing dissent, however. Those that swear by other calorie counting apps like Myfitnesspal are vociferously backing Im2calories.
“It’s not like we don’t have enough reminders to eat healthy, but obesity is a real problem. This is perhaps the best way to talk about it, on a platform where people spend the most time,” says Abhishek Bardia, senior creative strategist at Schbang.
Some users don’t think the presence of the calorie counting tool on Instagram will affect followers already on it.
People who want to use it for what it’s meant for, will. It has really helped me control my binge eating.
– Deepika Hariani, MyFitnessPal user
Do People Want to Know They’re on a Diet?
Google too, has come out in strong defence of the calorie counting app. Google research scientist Kevin Murphy told Popular Science that the goal isn’t to fat-shame people or make them feel bad about what they’re eating.
Rather, he wants to make it easier for Instagram users to maintain a food diary, using technology to automatically identify what they’re eating. That way the information won’t have to be manually entered into an app, thus eliminating guesswork on the part of the user about the servings they’ve had.
Unfortunately, it’s this speculation, almost likely to become desperate, that is slowly but surely falling under the mental disorder category.
“The idea is not to tell people to ‘diet’, but to make lifestyle changes that are permanent. Calorie counting endorses restrictive eating, which later sparks rebellion and leads to binge eating,” says psychiatrist, Dayal Mirchandani.
Look at the flipside; will the app be able to tell me if an egg has been fried in butter, on a non-stick pan?
– Dayal Mirchandani, psychiatrist
At a time when the world is grappling with eating issues, such an app – if used correctly – has the potential to go a long way.
But while Google may be counting its chickens, how many of us want a side of shame with that juicy burger we worked so hard for?
(Sanjana Chowhan is a recovering multimedia journalist, currently dabbling in the digital media space. A graduate from Columbia Journalism School, she currently lives, works and inhales coffee in Mumbai.)
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